SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


**. 


jg*m 


SOCIAL    EVOLUTION 


BY 


BENJAMIN   KIDD 


NEW  EDITION   WITH  A  NEW  PREFACE 


MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 

AND   LONDON 
I894 

All  rights  reserved 


HMIOl 

I  W+GS 


Copyright,  1894, 
By  M  ACM  ILL  AN  AND  CO. 


J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith. 
Boston,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

The  Outlook i 


CHAPTER   II 
Conditions  of  Human  Progress 31 

CHAPTER   III 

There  is  no  Rational  Sanction  for  the  Conditions 

of  Progress 63 

CHAPTER   IV 
The  Central  Feature  of  Human  History        .        .      87 

CHAPTER   V 

The  Function  of  Religious  Beliefs  in  the  Evolu- 
tion of  Society 104 

CHAPTER  VI 
Western  Civilisation 127 


M205165 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   VII 

PAGE 

Western  Civilisation  (continued}        .        .        .        .     157 

CHAPTER   VIII 
Modern  Socialism  .        . 207 

CHAPTER   IX 
Human  Evolution  is  not  primarily  Intellectual    .    261 

CHAPTER  X 
Concluding  Remarks     .......    309 

APPENDIX  I 355 

APPENDIX   II 360 

APPENDIX  III 367 


PREFACE   TO    THE    SECOND 
AMERICAN    EDITION 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  epochs  in  the  history  of 
human  thought  is  that  through  which  we  have  passed 
in  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  revo- 
lution which  began  with  the  application  of  the  doc- 
trines of  evolutionary  science,  and  which  received  its 
first  great  impetus  with  the  publication  of  Darwin's 
Origin  of  Species,  has  gradually  extended  in  scope 
until  it  has  affected  the  entire  intellectual  life  of  our 
Western  civilisation.  One  after  the  other  we  have 
seen  the  lower  sciences  revivified,  reconstructed,  trans- 
formed by  the  new  knowledge.  The  sciences  deal- 
ing with  man  in  society  have  naturally  been  the  last 
to  be  affected,  but  now  that  the  movement  has  reached 
them  the  changes  therein  promise  to  be  even  more 
startling  in  character.  History,  economics,  the  sci- 
ence of  politics,  and,  last  but  not  least  important,  the 
attitude  of  science  to  the  religious  life  and  the  relig- 
ious phenomena  of  mankind,  promise  to  be  profoundly 
influenced.  The  whole  plan  of  life  is,  in  short,  being 
slowly  revealed  to  us  in  a  new  light,  and  we  are  be- 
ginning to  perceive  that  it  presents  a  single  majestic 
unity,  throughout  every  part  of  which  the  conditions 
of  law  and  orderly  progress  reign  supreme. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  this  period  of  recon- 


viii  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

struction  than  the  change  which  is  almost  impercep- 
tibly taking  place  in  the  minds  of  the  rising  genera- 
tion respecting  the  great  social  and  religious  problem 
of  our  time.  We  have  lived  through  a  period  when 
the  very  foundations  of  human  thought  have  been 
rebuilt.  To  many  who  in  the  first  stage  saw  only  the 
confusion  occasioned  by  the  moving  of  old  landmarks, 
the  time  has  been  one  of  perplexity  and  changing 
hope.  But  those  whose  lot  it  has  been  to  come  later 
have  already  an  inspiring  and  uplifting  conception  of 
the  character  of  the  work  which  the  larger  knowledge 
is  destined  eventually  to  accomplish.  That  the  moral 
law  is  the  unchanging  law  of  progress  in  human  so- 
ciety is  the  lesson  which  appears  to  be  written  over 
all  things.  No  school  of  theology  has  ever  sought  to 
enforce  this  teaching  with  the  directness  and  emphasis 
which  it  appears  that  evolutionary  science  will  in  the 
future  be  justified  in  doing.  In  the  silent  and  strenu- 
ous rivalry  in  which  every  section  of  the  race  is  of 
necessity  continually  engaged,  permanent  success  ap- 
pears to  be  invariably  associated  with  the  ethical  and 
moral  conditions  favourable  to  the  maintenance  of  a 
high  standard  of  social  efficiency,  and  with  those  con- 
ditions only. 

No  one  who  engages  in  a  serious  study  of  the 
period  of  transition  through  which  our  Western  civil- 
isation is  passing  at  the  present  time  can  resist  the 
conclusion  that  we  are  rapidly  approaching  a  time 
when  we  shall  be  face  to  face  with  social  and  political 
problems,  graver  in  character  and  more  far-reaching 
in  extent  than  any  which  have  been  hitherto  encoun- 
tered. These  problems  are  not  peculiar  to  any 
nationality  included  in  our  civilisation.     But  in  the 


PREFACE  ix 

method  of  their  solution,  the  social  efficiency  of  the 
various  sections  of  the  Western  peoples  will  probably 
be  put  to  a  severer  test  than  any  which  it  has  yet 
had  to  undergo.  Those  who  realise,  however  dimly, 
the  immense  part  which  the  English-speaking  peo- 
ples—  if  true  to  their  own  traditions  —  are  not  im- 
probably destined  to  play  in  the  immediate  future  of 
the  world,  will  feel  how  great  a  gain  any  advance  may 
be  which  enables  us  through  the  methods  of  modern 
science  to  obtain  a  clear  perception  of  the  stern,  im- 
mutable conditions  of  moral  fitness  and  uprightness 
through  which  alone  a  people  can  long  continue  to 
play  a  great  part  on  the  stage  of  the  world.  No 
other  race  has  ever  looked  out  upon  such  an  oppor- 
tunity as  presents  itself  before  these  peoples  in  the 
twentieth  century.  Will  they  prove  equal  to  it  ? 
The  world  will  be  poorer  indeed  and  the  outlook  for 
our  civilisation  gloomy  if  they  fail.  Those  of  us  who 
believe  that  they  will  not  fail,  feel  that  anything 
which  helps  the  world  to  a  better  understanding  of 
the  great  permanent  causes  which  make  for  the  im- 
provement or  decay  of  peoples,  must  needs  act  as 
a  strengthening  and  bracing  influence  in  the  work 
which  is  before  us. 


SOCIAL   EVOLUTION 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    OUTLOOK 

To  the  thoughtful  mind  the  outlook  at  the  close 
of  the  nineteenth  century  is  profoundly  interesting. 
History  can  furnish  no  parallel  to  it.  The  problems 
which  loom  across  the  threshold  of  the  new  century 
surpass  in  magnitude  any  that  civilisation  has  hitherto 
had  to  encounter.  We  seem  to  have  reached  a  time 
in  which  there  is  abroad  in  men's  minds  an  instinc- 
tive feeling  that  a  definite  stage  in  the  evolution 
of  Western  civilisation  is  drawing  to  a  close,  and 
that  we  are  entering  on  a  new  era.  Yet  one  of 
the  most  curious  features  of  the  time  is  the  almost 
complete  absence  of  any  clear  indication  from  those 
who  speak  in  the  name  of  science  and  authority  as 
to  the  direction  in  which  the  path  of  future  progress 
lies.  On  every  side  in  those  departments  of  knowl- 
edge which  deal  with  social  affairs  change,  transi- 
tion, and  uncertainty  are  apparent.  Despite  the 
great  advances  which  science  has  made  during  the 
past  century  in  almost  every  other  direction,  there  is, 
it  must  be  confessed,  no  science  of  human  society 
properly  so  called.  What  knowledge  there  is  exists 
in  a  more  or  less  chaotic  state  sca£ter;e4',  lyadea?.  many 


2  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

heads  ;  and  it  is  not  improbably  true,  however  much 
we  may  hesitate  to  acknowledge  it,  that  the  general- 
isations which  have  recently  tended  most  to  foster 
a  conception  of  the  unity  uhderlying  the  laws  operat- 
ing amid  the  complex  social  phenomena  of  our  time, 
have  not  been  those  which  have  come  from  the  ortho- 
dox scientific  school.  They  have  rather  been  those 
advanced  by  that  school  of  social  revolutionists  of 
which  Karl  Marx  is  the  most  commanding  figure. 
Judged  by  the  utterances  of  her  spokesmen,  science, 
whose  great  triumph  in  the  nineteenth  century  has 
been  the  tracing  of  the  steps  in  the  evolution  of  life 
up  to  human  society,  stands  now  dumb  before  the 
problems  presented  by  society  as  it  exists  around  us. 
As  regards  its  further  evolution  she  appears  to  have 
no  clear  message. 

In  England  we  have  a  most  remarkable  example  of 
the  attitude  of  science  when  she  is  appealed  to  for 
aid  and  enlightenment  in  those  all-engrossing  prob- 
lems with  which  society  is  struggling.  One  of  the 
monumental  works  of  our  time  is  the  "  Synthetic 
Philosophy"  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  begun  early 
in  the  second  half  of  the  century,  and  not  yet  com- 
pleted. It  is  a  stupendous  attempt  not  only  at  the 
unification  of  knowledge,  but  at  the  explanation  in 
terms  of  evolutionary  science  of  the  development 
which  human  society  is  undergoing,  and  towards  the 
elucidation  of  which  development  it  is  rightly  rec- 
ognised that  all  the  work  of  science  in  lower  fields 
should  be  preliminary.  Yet  so  little  practical  light 
has  the  author  apparently  succeeded  in  throwing  on 
the  nature  of  the  social  problems  of  our  time,  that 
his 'Jn^esttgat tons:  anrd  conclusions  are,  according  as 


I  THE   OUTLOOK  3 

they  are  dealt  with  by  one  side  or  the  other,  held  to  lead 
up  to  the  opinions  of  the  two  diametrically  opposite 
camps  of  individualists  and  collectivists  into  which 
society  is  slowly  becoming  organised. 

From  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  in  England,  who  him- 
self regards  the  socialistic  tendencies  of  the  times 
with  dislike  if  not  with  alarm,  and  whose  views  are 
thus  shared  by  some  and  opposed  by  others  of  his 
own  followers,  to  Professor  Schaffle  in  Germany,  who 
regards  the  future  as  belonging  to  purified  socialism, 
we  have  every  possible  and  perplexing  variety  of 
opinion.  The  negative  and  helpless  position  of 
science  is  fairly  exemplified  in  England  by  Professor 
Huxley,  who  in  some  of  his  recent  writings  has  de- 
voted himself  to  reducing  the  aims  of  the  two  con- 
flicting parties  of  the  day  —  individualists  and  social- 
ists—  to  absurdity  and  impossibility  respectively. 
These  efforts  are  not,  however,  to  be  regarded  as  pre- 
liminary to  an  attempt  to  inspire  us  with  any  clear 
idea  as  to  where  our  duty  lies  in  the  circumstances. 
After  this  onslaught  his  own  faith  in  the  future  grows 
obscure,  and  he  sends  his  readers  on  their  way  with, 
for  guiding  principle,  no  particular  faith  or  hope  in 
anything.1 

Yet  that  the  times  are  pregnant  of  great  changes 
the  least  observant  must  be  convinced.  Even  those 
who  indulge  in  these  destructive  criticisms  seem  to 
be  conscious  of  this.  Professor  Huxley  himself,  de- 
spite his  negative  conclusions,  is  almost  as  outspoken 
as  a  Nihilist  in  his  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing 

1  See  his  "  Government :  Anarchy  or  Regimentation,"  Nineteenth 
Century,  May  1890.  See  also  his  Social  Diseases  and  Worse  Reme- 
dies, pp.  13-51. 


4  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

state  of  things.  "  Even  the  best  of  modern  civilisa- 
tions," said  he  recently,  "  appears  to  me  to  exhibit  a 
condition  of  mankind  which  neither  embodies  any 
worthy  ideal  nor  even  possesses  the  merit  of  stability. 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  express  the  opinion  that  if  there 
is  no  hope  of  a  large  improvement  of  the  condition 
of  the  greater  part  of  the  human  family ;  if  it  is  true 
that  the  increase  of  knowledge,  the  winning  of  a 
greater  domain  over  nature  which  is  its  consequence, 
and  the  wealth  which  follows  upon  that  domain  are  to 
make  no  difference  in  the  extent  and  the  intensity  of 
want  with  its  concomitant  physical  and  moral  degra- 
dation amongst  the  masses  of  the  people,  I  should 
hail  the  advent  of  some  kindly  comet  which  would 
sweep  the  whole  affair  away  as  a  desirable  consum- 
mation." *  It  is  the  large  body  of  thought  which 
this  kind  of  feeling  inspires  which  is  now  stirring 
European  society  to  its  depths,  and  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  it  will  have  to  be  reckoned  with. 
M.  de  Laveleye,  a  few  years  ago,  put  the  feeling  into 
words.  The  message  of  the  eighteenth  century  to 
man  was,  he  said,  "  Thou  shalt  cease  to  be  the  slave 
of  nobles  and  despots  who  oppress  thee ;  thou  art 
free  and  sovereign."  But  the  problem  of  our  times 
is  :  "  It  is  a  grand  thing  to  be  free  and  sovereign,  but 
how  is  it  that  the  sovereign  often  starves  ?  how  is  it 
that  those  who  are  held  to  be  the  source  of  power 
often  cannot,  even  by  hard  work,  provide  themselves 
with  the  necessaries  of  life  ?  "  2     Mr.  Henry  George 

1  "Government:  Anarchy  or  Regimentation,"  by  Professor  Huxley, 
Nineteenth  Century,  May  1890. 

2  "  Communism :  "  by  Emile  de  Laveleye,   Contemporary  Review, 
March  1890. 


I  THE   OUTLOOK  5 

only  fairly  presses  the  matter  home  by  asking  whither 
in  such  circumstances  our  progress  is  leading;  for, 
"  to  educate  men  who  must  be  condemned  to  poverty 
is  but  to  make  them  restive ;  to  base  on  a  state  of 
most  glaring  social  inequality  political  institutions 
under  which  men  are  theoretically  equal  is  to  stand  a 
pyramid  on  its  apex."  * 

Those  who  wish  to  see  the  end  of  the  present  con- 
dition of  society  have,  so  far,  taken  most  part  in  the 
argument.  Those  who  have  no  desire  for  change  are 
of  the  class  which  always  waits  for  action  rather  than 
argument.  But  a  large  section  of  the  community, 
probably  the  largest  section,  while  remaining  uncon- 
vinced by  the  arguments  used  and  more  or  less  dis- 
trusting the  methods  proposed,  feel  that  some  change 
is  inevitable.  It  is  with  these  will  probably  rest  the 
decisive  part  in  shaping  the  course  of  future  events. 
But  at  present  they  simply  sit  still  and  wait.  They 
have  no  indication  as  to  the  direction  in  which  the 
right  path  lies.  They  look  in  vain  to  science  and 
authority  for  any  hint  as  to  duty.  They  are  without 
a  faith,  for  there  is  at  the  present  time  no  science  of 
human  society.  Many  of  the  spokesmen  of  science 
who  concern  themselves  with  social  problems  con- 
tinue to  speak  and  act  as  if  they  conceived  that  their 
duty  to  society  was  to  take  away  its  religious  beliefs. 
But  it  is  not  that  they  have  any  faith  of  their  own  to 
offer  instead ;  they  apparently  have  themselves  no 
grasp  of  the  problems  with  which  the  world  is  strug- 
gling as  best  it  can.  Science  has  obviously  herself 
no  clear  perception  of  the  nature  of  the  social  evolu- 
tion we  are  undergoing.     She  has  made  no  serious 

i  Progress  and  Poverty,  Introduction. 


6  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

attempt  to  explain  the  phenomenon  of  our  Western 
civilisation.  We  are  without  any  real  knowledge  of 
the  laws  of  its  life  and  development  or  of  the  prin- 
ciples which  underlie  the  process  of  social  evolution 
which  is  proceeding  around  us.1 

To  many  the  spirit  of  the  French  Revolution  which 
caused  so  universal  a  feeling  of  unrest  at  the  end  of 
the  last  century  seems  to  be  again  unloosed,  and 
after  an  epoch  of  progress  unexampled  in  the  history 
of  the  world  we  would  appear  to  have  returned  to  the 
discussion  of  the  ideals  of  society  which  moved  men's 
minds  at  that  period  of  upheaval.  Nothing  can,  how- 
ever, be  more  out  of  place  than  comparisons  which 
are  instituted  between  society  one  hundred  years  ago 
and  at  the  present  time.  We  have  little  in  common 
with  this  past.  It  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  any 
clue  to  the  solution  of  the  problems  which  confront 
us  in  the  future.  The  great  political  revolution 
which  began  one  hundred  years  ago,  and  which  has 
been  in  progress  in  England  and  on  the  Continent 
throughout  the  nineteenth  century,  has  well-nigh 
attained  its  ends.  The  middle  classes  having  suc- 
ceeded in  enfranchising  themselves  have  been  in  turn 
driven  to  enfranchise  the  lower  classes ;  and  with  the 
possession  of  universal  education  and  universal  suf- 
frage, and  the  long  list  of  measures  tending  the  more 
fully  to  secure  the  political  enfranchisement  of  the 

1  So  far  the  larger  part  of  the  most  useful  work  of  the  century  in 
the  department  of  sociology  appears  to  have  been  merely  destructive. 
"  It  may  be  stated,"  said  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  recently,  "  that  there  is  no 
science  of  sociology  properly  scientific  —  merely  a  heap  of  vague 
empirical  observations,  too  flimsy  to  be  useful  in  strict  logical  infer- 
ence."—  Presidential  Address,  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Social  and 
Political  Education  League,  March  1892. 


I  THE  OUTLOOK  7 

people  which  has  accompanied  them,  this  revolution  is, 
to  all  intents,  complete.  We  have  in  reality  entered 
on  a  new  stage  of  social  evolution  in  which  the  minds 
of  men  are  moving  towards  other  goals ;  and  those 
political  parties  which  still  stand  confronting  the 
people  with  remnants  of  the  political  programme  of 
political  equality  are  beginning  to  find  that  the  world 
is  rapidly  moving  beyond  their  standpoint. 

In  other  directions,  too,  the  changes  have  been 
vast.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  century  applied 
science  has  transformed  the  world.  Amongst  the 
advanced  nations,  the  great  wave  of  industrial  ex- 
pansion which  follows  in  its  wake  is  slowly  but 
inevitably  submerging  the  old  landmarks  of  society, 
and  preparing  for  us  a  world  where  the  old  things, 
material  and  social  as  well  as  political,  have  passed 
away,  and  in  which  the  experience  of  the  past  is  no 
longer  a  reliable  guide.  The  marvellous  develop- 
ment of  practical  science,  the  revolution  in  industry 
which  it  has  effected,  the  application  of  steam  and 
electricity  on  an  immense  scale  to  machinery,  the 
enormous  extension  of  railways,  telegraphs,  and  other 
means  of  rapid  communication,  the  development  of 
commerce  to  a  degree  never  before  imagined,  are 
amongst  the  wonders  of  the  present  age.  They  are 
only  the  earnest  apparently  of  the  future.  Even  a 
superficial  acquaintance  with  the  means  and  methods 
of  modern  science  can  hardly  fail  to  leave  the  convic- 
tion that  no  limit  can  be  set  to  the  possibilities  of 
even  the  near  future,  and  that  the  achievements  of 
the  past,  extraordinary  as  they  have  been,  are  not  im- 
probably destined  to  be  eclipsed  at  no  distant  date. 

But  it  is  the  more  slowly  ripening  fruits  of  the 


8  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

industrial  revolution  which  arrest  attention.  Social 
forces  new,  strange,  and  altogether  immeasurable 
have  been  released  among  us.  Only  one  hundred 
years  ago,  nations  and  communities  were  as  distant 
from  each  other  in  time  as  they  were  at  the  Christian 
era.  Since  then  the  ends  of  the  world  have  been 
drawn  together,  and  civilised  society  is  becoming  one 
vast  highly  organised  and  inter-dependent  whole  — 
the  wants  and  requirements  of  every  part  regulated 
by  economic  laws  bewildering  in  their  intricacy  — 
with  a  nervous  system  of  five  million  miles  of  tele- 
graph wire,  and  an  arterial  system  of  railways  and 
ocean  steamships,  along  which  the  currents  of  trade 
and  population  flow  with  a  rapidity  and  regularity 
previously  unimagined.  The  old  bonds  of  society 
have  been  loosened ;  old  forces  are  becoming  extinct ; 
whole  classes  have  been  swept  away,  and  new  classes 
have  arisen.  The  great  army  of  industrial  workers 
throughout  the  world  is  almost  entirely  a  growth  of 
the  past  hundred  years.  Vast  displacements  of  popu- 
lation have  taken  place,  and  are  still  taking  place. 
The  expansion  of  the  towns,  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able features  of  the  industrial  revolution,  still  con- 
tinues unabated,  no  less  in  America  and  Australia 
than  in  England,  Germany,  and  France ;  and  civilisa- 
tion is  everywhere  massing  together,  within  limited 
areas,  large  populations  extremely  sensitive  to  innu- 
merable social  stimuli  which  did  not  exist  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century.  The  air  is  full  of  new 
battle-cries,  of  the  sound  of  the  gathering  and  mar- 
shalling of  new  forces  and  the  reorganisation  of  old 
ones.  Socialism  seems  to  many  minds  to  have  been 
born  again,  and  to  be  entering  on  the  positive  and 


I  ,  THE  OUTLOOK  9 

practical  stage.     It  has  ceased  to  be  a  theory,  it  has 
begun  to  be  a  kind  of  religion. 

Nor  does  the  new  faith  appear  to  be  without  its 
credentials  and  its  aids  to  belief.  It  has,  in  the 
products  of  the  times,  a  background  as  luridly  effec- 
tive as  any  which  stirred  the  imagination  of  the  early 
Christians  in  the  days  of  degenerate  Rome.  We  are 
told  that  the  immense  progress  of  the  century  and 
the  splendid  conquests  of  science  have  brought  no 
corresponding  gain  to  the  masses.  That,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  the  wage-earning  class,  which  carries  soci- 
ety on  its  shoulders,  the  century  has  been  in  many 
respects  a  period  of  progressive  degeneration.  That 
the  labourer  has  ceased  to  be  a  man  as  nature  made 
him ;  and  that,  ignorant  of  all  else,  he  is  only  occu- 
pied with  some  small  detail  in  the  huge  mill  of  indus- 
try. That  even  the  skilled  worker  holds  desperately 
to  the  small  niche  into  which  he  has  been  fitted, 
knowing  that  to  lose  his  place  is  to  become  part  of 
the  helpless  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  society,  tossed  to 
and  fro  on  the  tide  of  poverty  and  misery.  The 
adherents  of  the  new  faith  ask,  What  avails  it  that 
the  waste  places  of  the  earth  have  been  turned  into 
highways  of  commerce,  if  the  many  still  work  and 
want,  and  only  the  few  have  leisure  and  grow  rich  ? 
What  does  it  profit  the  worker  that  knowledge  grows, 
if  all  the  appliances  of  science  are  not  to  lighten  his 
labour?  Wealth  may  accumulate,  and  public  and 
private  magnificence  may  have  reached  a  point  never 
before  attained  in  the  history  of  the  world ;  but 
wherein  is  society  the  better,  it  is  asked,  if  the  Nem- 
esis of  poverty  still  sits  like  a  hollow-eyed  spectre  at 
the  feast  ?   The  wheels  of  the  world  go  round  quicker, 


10  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap-. 

for  science  stokes  the  furnace ;  but  men  work  sul- 
lenly. A  new  patrician  class.,  we  are  told,  has  arisen 
with  all  the  power,  but  none  of  the  character  or  the 
responsibilities  of  the  old.  We  hear  of  the  "  robber 
knights  of  capital,"  and  of  the  "unclean  brigand 
aristocracy  of  the  Stock  Exchange."  We  are  told 
that  they  who  profit  are  the  organisers  who  set  the 
machine  to  work,  who  pull  the  levers,  study  its  pulses, 
and  know  its  wants.  They  divide  and  govern,  and 
the  world  works  that  they  may  grow  rich. 

What  wonder  that  with  such  a  creed  the  new  bat- 
tle-cries have  an  ominous  sound.  We  hear  no  longer 
of  the  privileged  and  the  people,  but  of  the  idlers  and 
the  workers,  the  usurpers  and  the  disinherited,  the 
robbers  and  the  robbed.  Many  who  think  that  we 
have  heard  all  this  before,  and  who  are  relieved  to 
remember  that  socialism  is  as  old  as  Fourier,  Robert 
Owen,  and  Louis  Blanc,  leave  out  of  consideration 
what  is  an  all-important  factor  at  the  present  time. 
In  England,  when  early  in  the  century  Robert  Owen's 
theories  were  discussed,  and  for  long  after,  the  work- 
ing classes,  it  must  be  remembered,  were  almost 
without  political  rights  of  any  kind.  They  lived  like 
brutes,  huddled  together  in  wretched  dwellings,  with- 
out education  and  without  any  voice  in  politics  or  in 
the  management  of  public  affairs.  Since  then  all 
this  has  gradually  been  changed.  One  of  the  most 
striking  and  significant  signs  of  the  times  is  the  spec- 
tacle of  Demos,  with  these  new  battle-cries  ringing  in 
his  ears,  gradually  emerging  from  the  long  silence  of 
social  and  political  serfdom.  Not  now  does  he  come 
with  the  violence  of  revolution  foredoomed  to  failure, 
but  with  the  slow  and  majestic  progress  which  marks 


I  THE  OUTLOOK  11 

a  natural  evolution.  He  is  no  longer  unwashed  and 
illiterate,  for  we  have  universal  education.  He  is  no 
longer  muzzled  and  without  political  power,  for  we 
have  universal  suffrage.  With  his  advent,  socialism 
has  ceased  to  be  a  philanthropic  sentiment  merely. 
It  still  enlists  the  sympathies  of  many  of  the  best 
minds,  but  it  has  become  at  the  same  time  a  direct 
appeal  to  the  selfish  instincts  of  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  community  wielding  political  power.1  The 
advent  of  Demos  is  the  natural  result  of  a  long  series 
of  concessions,  beginning  in  England  with  the  pass- 
ing of  the  Factory  Acts,  and  the  legalisation  of  com- 
bination, and  leading  gradually  up  to  the  avowedly 
socialistic  legislation  for  which  the  times  appear  to 
be  ripening. 

But  so  far  all  the  changes  are  said  to  have  only 
increased  the  power  without  materially  lessening  the 
misery  of  the  working  classes ;  and  the  goal  towards 
which  all  efforts  are  directed  seems  still  far  off. 
Science  may  be  content  to  sit  still  and  wait  for  the 
arrival  of  the  avenging  comet  to  put  an  end  to  pre- 
vailing misery  ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  those 
who  have  to  bear  and  suffer  will,  with  the  power  they 
at  present  possess,  be  content  to  be  equally  patient 
should  they  discover  themselves  to  be  equally  hope- 
less. Nay  more,  it  is  not  even  likely  that  the  average 
political  mind,  which  is  always  in  favour  of  anything 
which  it  really  believes  to  be  for  the  improvement 
and  uplifting  of  society,  will  be  content  to  remain  pas- 

1  Communism,  as  M.  de  Laveleye  very  truly  points  out,  tends  to  be 
specially  attractive  to  two  classes  of  men,  —  reformers  and  the  workers. 
"The  former  are  drawn  to  it  by  a  sentiment  of  justice,  the  latter  by 
their  own  necessities." 


12  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

sive  ;  there  are  signs  that  it  is  being  deeply  moved  by 
what  is  taking  place  around  us. 

We  are  told  that  society  in  its  present  state  does 
not  possess  the  elements  of  stability.  Those  who 
are  determined  that  something  shall  be  done  are  not 
without  able  leaders  ;  and,  as  has  been  well  remarked, 
misdirected  genius  in  circumstances  like  the  present 
beats  gunpowder  hollow  as  an  explosive.1  The  new 
creed  is  indeed  already  forging  its  weapons.  The 
worker  is  beginning  to  discover  that  what  he  has  lost 
as  an  individual,  he  has  gained  as  a  class ;  and  that 
by  organisation  he  may  obtain  the  power  of  meeting 
his  masters  on  more  equal  terms.  The  shrinkage  of 
space,  the  perfecting  of  the  means  of  communication, 
the  consolidation  of  society,  the  power  of  the  press 
and  public  opinion  are  all  factors  and  forces  as  much 
on  his  side  as  on  the  other,  and  we  are  beginning  to 
see  the  result.  Even  national  lines  of  demarcation 
are  disappearing.  Society  is  being  organised  by 
classes  into  huge  battalions,  the  avowed  object  of 
which  is  the  making  war  on  each  other.  We  have 
syndicates,  corporations,  and  federations  of  capital  on 
one  side,  and  societies,  trades-unions,  and  federations 
of  labour  on  the  other. 

But  this  has  been  already  not  only  anticipated  but 
described  for  us  by  Karl  Marx  and  his  disciples.  We 
are  told  that  it  is  but  part  of  a  great  natural  develop- 
ment which  society  is  undergoing,  the  steps  in  which 
can  be  foreseen,  and  the  end  of  which  is  inevitable. 
The  growing  enslavement  and  degradation  of  the 
workers,  the  development  of  a  class  feeling  amongst 

1  Huxley,  Critiques  and  Addresses —  "Administrative  Nihilism." 


I  THE  OUTLOOK  13 

them,  accompanied  by  combinations  and  organisa- 
tions against  the  common  enemy,  extending  not  only 
throughout  the  community,  but  across  national  boun- 
daries, are  amongst  the  phenomena  which  we  have 
been  led  to  expect.  We  are  told  that,  on  the  other 
side,  we  must  also  expect  to  see  the  smaller  capitalists 
continue  to  be  extinguished  by  the  larger,  until,  with 
the  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  a  few  colos- 
sal capitalists,  society  at  length  will  feel  the  anarchy 
of  production  intolerable,  and  the  end  of  a  natural  pro- 
cess of  transformation  must  come  with  the  seizing  of 
political  control  by  the  proletariat,  and  the  turning 
by  them  of  the  means  of  production  into  state  prop- 
erty. After  which,  we  must  look  forward,  we  are 
told,  to  the  abolition  of  all  class  distinctions  and  class 
antagonisms,  the  extinction  of  an  exploiting  class 
within  the  community,  and  the  disappearance  of  the 
individual  struggle  for  existence. 

All  this  has  been  described  with  a  knowledge  of 
social  phenomena  and  a  grasp  of  principle  to  which 
many  of  its  critics  so  far  cannot  lay  claim.  The 
larger  portion  of  the  community,  however,  admitting 
the  evils  although  remaining  unconvinced  by  the 
arguments,  stand  in  helpless  confusion  of  mind  and 
watch  the  forces  drawing  together,  and  the  battle 
being  set  in  array  between  them.  To  give  or  with- 
hold their  support  to  one  or  other  of  the  combatants, 
often  means  success  or  failure  for  the  time  being  to 
that  side,  and  their  support  is  accordingly  eagerly  solic- 
ited by  each  in  turn.  But  these  who  may  have  to  de- 
termine the  issue  are  without  knowledge  of  the  first 
principles  of  the  struggle.  They  look  in  vain  for  any 
authoritative  definition  of  the  laws  or  principles  which 


14  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

underlie  it,  for  any  clear  indication  as  to  which  side 
is  right  and  which  is  wrong,'  or  for  any  definite  teach- 
ing as  to  whither  our  Western  civilisation  as  a  whole 
is  tending. 

Amongst  other  noteworthy  aspects  of  the  time  not 
the  least  remarkable  is  the  revolution  which  is  silently 
taking  place  in  men's  minds  with  regard  to  matters 
previously  held  to  be  more  or  less  outside  the  sphere 
of  political  discussion.  The  alteration  which  is  tak- 
ing place  in  the  standpoint  from  which  religion  is 
regarded  is  very  remarkable.  The  change  is  not 
exclusively,  nor  perhaps  even  principally  confined  to 
those  professing  religion,  and  it  affects  men  of  differ- 
ent views  in  widely  different  ways.  The  outward 
indications  might  appear  at  first  sight  puzzling  and 
conflicting  in  the  extreme,  and  it  is  not  until  they  are 
grouped  and  compared  that  they  are  seen  to  all  be- 
long to  one  wide  and  general  movement  of  opinion. 
Within  the  Churches  one  of  the  signs  of  this  change 
is  visible  in  a  growing  tendency  to  assert  that  religion 
is  concerned  with  man's  actual  state  in  this  world 
as  well  as  with  his  possible  state  in  the  next ;  in  the 
desire  to  dwell  upon  the  features  which  ecclesiastical 
organisations  have  in  common  rather  than  upon  those 
features  in  which  they  differ  from  each  other ;  and  in 
the  increasing  tendency  to  assert  that  the  Churches 
should  be  judged  rather  by  their  deeds  than  by  their 
doctrines. 

We  are  beginning  to  hear  from  many  quarters  that 
the  social  question  is  at  bottom  a  religious  question, 
and  that  to  its  solution  it  behoves  the  Churches  in 
the  interests  of  society  to  address  themselves.  The 
head  of  the   Roman  Catholic  Church,  no  less  than 


I  THE  OUTLOOK  15 

the  head  of  the  Salvation  Army,  seems  to  have  felt 
the  influence  of  the  spirit  which  is  abroad.  Both 
in  the  public  press  and  in  the  pulpit,  from  noncon- 
formity and  orthodoxy  alike,  we  have  the  note  sounded 
in  varying  keys,  that,  after  all,  Christianity  was  in- 
tended to  save  not  only  men  but  man,  and  that  its  mis- 
sion should  be  to  teach  us  not  only  how  to  die  as  indi- 
viduals but  how  to  live  as  members  of  society.1  So 
pronounced  is  the  change,  that  when  from  time  to 
time  a  protest  to  the  contrary  comes  from  within 
the  Church  itself,  and  we  are  told,  as  we  recently 
have  been,  by  one  of  the  dignitaries  of  the  Angli- 
can Church  that  it  is  "a  mistake  to  attempt  to  turn 
Christ's  kingdom  into  one  of  this  world,2  that  the 
Regmitn  Hominis  can  never  be  the  Civitas  Dei,  and 
that  the  state  does  not  and  could  not  exist  on  Chris- 
tian principles,  we  are  startled  as  if  we  had  caught  an 
echo  from  the  Contrat  Social,  and  heard  again,  and 
from  the  other  side,  Rousseau's  doctrine  that  the 
Christian  cannot  be  a  true  citizen. 

But  it  is  not  within  the  Churches  but  rather  out- 
side them  that  the  symptoms  of  the  change  are  most 
noticeable.  Many  who  have  watched  the  course  of 
the  struggle  which  has  been  waged  between  Religion 
and  Science  within  the  century,  and  who  have  realised 
to  the  full  the  force  of  the  new  weapons  which  the 
latter  has  brought  to  bear  against  her  old  antagonist 
have  cause  for  reflection  at  the  present  time.  Some 
amongst  them  have  already  begun  to  see  that  the 

1  Vide  Sermon  preached  before  Oxford  University,  nth  December 
1887,  by  Rev.  Prebendary  Eyton. 

2  Bishop  of  Peterborough,  Address  at  the  Diocesan  Conference, 
Leicester,  25th  October  1889. 


16  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

result  is  likely  to  be  different  from  what  either  side 
expected,  and  strangely  different  from  that  which  the 
more  impulsive  spokesmen  of  science  anticipated.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  assert  that  we  are  at  the  present 
time  entering  on  an  era  in  which  we  are  about  to  wit- 
ness one  of  the  most  striking  revolutions  in  the  aspect  of 
the  conflict  which  has  taken  place  since  it  first  began. 
There  are  two  movements  of  opinion  which  have 
deeply  affected  the  inner  religious  life  of  the  present 
century.  The  first  has  its  cause  in  what  may  be 
called  the  new  revelation  of  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion ;  the  other  has  received  its  impetus  from  the 
historic  criticism  of  the  Bible  by  various  workers 
from  Strauss  to  Renan.  Whatever  may  be  the 
opinion  of  individuals  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  tendency  of  both  these  movements  has  been 
generally  considered  to  be  on  the  whole  profoundly 
anti-religious.  There  have  been  indeed  many  en- 
lightened minds  so  far  affected  as  to  regard  the  new 
knowledge  as  having  definitely  and  finally  closed  the 
controversy  between  Religion  and  Science  by  the 
annihilation  of  one  of  the  antagonists.  Nevertheless, 
when  all  due  allowance  is  made  for  these  movements 
of  opinion  there  is  a  tendency  of  the  time  which 
ought  not  to  escape  the  notice  of  an  observant  mind. 
Some  conception  of  the  direction  in  which  we  are 
travelling  begins  to  shape  itself  when  the  present  is 
contrasted  with  the  past.  Perhaps  one  of  the  first 
things  which  arrest  attention  on  a  comparison  of  the 
condition  of  thought  outside  the  Churches  on  relig- 
ious questions  at  the  present  and  at  the  beginning 
of  the  century  is  the  disappearance  of  that  condition 
of   mind   represented  at  the   period  of   the    French 


I  THE  OUTLOOK  17 

Revolution  by  the  assured  and  aggressive  objector 
to  religion.  It  is  not  that  the  dogmas  of  religion  are 
more  widely  adhered  to,  but  that  this  state  of  mind 
has  been  to  a  large  extent  superseded  in  America, 
Germany,  and  England,  but  more  particularly  in  the 
last-mentioned  country  by  a  remarkable  earnestness, 
a  general  deep-lying  religiousness  —  using  the  word 
in  its  broadest  sense,  for  the  disposition  is  often 
not  less  marked  amongst  those  openly  rejecting  the 
dogmas  of  religion — which  is  perhaps  without  a  par- 
allel in  any  previous  age. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  view  now  as  repre- 
sentative of  the  time  the  aggressive  and  merely  de- 
structive form  of  unbelief  which  finds  expression  in 
England  in  opinions  like  those  of  the  late  Mr.  Charles 
Bradlaugh,  and  in  America  in  the  writings  and  ad- 
dresses of  Colonel  Ingersoll.  Even  with  regard  to 
the  views  of  the  new  party  of  Agnostics,  represent- 
ing what  may  be  called  unbelief  in  a  passive  state, 
a  current  of  change  may  be  discerned  in  progress. 
The  militant  onslaughts  of  so  cultured  a  representa- 
tive as  Professor  Huxley,  the  founder  of  the  party, 
do  not  find  the  response  in  men's  minds  they  would 
have  found  at  a  previous  time.  They  are,  almost 
unconsciously,  recognised  as  belonging  to  a  phase  of 
thought  beyond  which  the  present  generation  feels 
itself,  in  some  way,  to  have  moved.  The  general 
mind,  so  often  more  scientific  than  our  current 
science,  seems  to  feel  that  there  is  something  wrong 
in  the  attitude  of  science  towards  this  subject  of 
religion,  that  the  most  persistent  and  universal  class 
of  phenomena  connected  with  human  society  cannot 
be  thus  lightly  disposed  of,    and  that  our  religious 


18  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

systems  must  have  some  unexplained  function  to 
perform  in  the  evolution  which  society  is  undergoing, 
and  on  a  scale  to  correspond  with  the  magnitude  of 
the  phenomena. 

This  ill-defined  general  feeling  has  found  more 
active  expression  in  individuals.  The  movement  of 
a  certain  class  of  minds  towards  the  Church  of  Rome, 
the  most  conservative  and  uncompromising  of  all  the 
Churches,  which  began  in  England  in  the  middle  of 
the  century,  and  which  has  continued  in  some  degree 
down  to  the  present  time,  is  not  to  be  considered 
merely  as  a  religious  incident ;  it  is  of  deep  sociologi- 
cal import.  Even  the  tendency,  visible  at  the  present 
time  amongst  another  class  of  minds,  to  seek  cover 
under  the  vague  shadows  of  the  super-rational  in 
Theosophy  and  kindred  forms  of  belief,  has  a  certain 
significance  which  will  not  escape  the  attention  of 
the  student  of  social  phenomena.  It  is  but  the  out- 
ward expression  in  another  form  of  the  same  move- 
ment affecting  a  different  type  of  mind.  It  was, 
probably,  an  overstatement  on  the  part  of  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Comtists  in  England  to  say  recently 
that  "  the  net  result  of  the  whole  negative  attack  on 
the  Gospel  has  perhaps  been  to  deepen  the  moral 
hold  of  Christianity  on  society."1  The  opinion, 
nevertheless,  represents  the  imperfect  expression  of 
a  truth  towards  which  the  present  generation  is 
slowly  feeling  its  way. 

We  have,  undoubtedly,  during  the  century,  made 
progress  in  these  matters.  The  direction  may  ap- 
pear as  yet  uncertain,  but  all  the  indications  denote 

1"The  Future  of  Agnosticism,"  by  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  Fort- 
nightly Review,  January  1889. 


I  THE  OUTLOOK  19 

a  definite  and  unmistakable  advance  of  some  kind. 
The  condition  which  the  social  mind  has  reached 
may  be  tentatively  described  as  one  of  realisation,, 
more  or  less  unconscious,  that  religion  has  a  definite 
function  to  perform  in  society,  and  that  it  is  a  factor 
of  some  kind  in  the  social  evolution  which  is  in  prog- 
ress. But  as  to  what  that  function  is,  where  it 
begins,  where  it  ends,  and  what  place  religious  beliefs 
are  destined  to  fill  in  the  future,  science  has  given  us 
no  indication. 

But  it  is  now  when  we  turn  to  the  domain  which 
science  has  made  her  own  that  the  outlines  and  pro- 
portions of  the  coming  change  begin  to  be  distin- 
guished. The  time  is  certainly  not  far  distant  when 
she  must  look  back  with  surprise,  if  not,  indeed,  with 
some  degree  of  shamefacedness,  to  the  attitude  in 
which  she  has  for  long  addressed  herself  to  one  of 
the  highest  problems  in  the  history  of  life.  The 
definition  of  the  laws  which  have  shaped,  and  are 
still  shaping,  the  course  of  progress  in  human  society 
is  the  work  of  science,  no  less  than  it  has  been  her 
work  to  discover  the  laws  which  have  controlled  the 
course  of  evolution  throughout  life  in  all  the  lower 
stages.  But  the  spirit  in  which  she  has  addressed 
herself  to  the  one  task  is  widely  different  from  that 
in  which  she  has  undertaken  the  other.  To  her  in- 
vestigations in  biology,  science  has  brought  a  single- 
minded  devotion  to  the  truth,  a  clear  judgment,  and 
a  mind  absolutely  unfettered  by  prejudice  or  bias  : 
the  splendid  achievements  of  the  century  in  this 
department  of  knowledge  are  the  result.  But  when, 
in  the  ascending  scale  of  life,  she  has  reached  man,' 
the  spirit  in  which  her  investigations  have  been  con- 


20  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

tinued  is  entirely  different.  She  finds  him  emerging 
from  the  dim  obscurity  of  a  brute-like  existence  pos- 
sessing two  endowments  which  mark  him  out  for  a 
great  future,  namely,  his  reason  and  his  social  capac- 
ities. Like  all  that  have  come  before  him  he  is 
engaged  in  a  fierce  and  endless  struggle  for  the 
means  of  existence ;  and  he  now  takes  part  in  this 
struggle  not  only  against  his  fellows  but  in  company 
with  them  against  other  social  groups.  He  grows 
ever  more  and  more  social,  and  forms  himself  into 
clans  and  organised  tribal  groups.  From  the  begin- 
ning science  finds  him  under  the  sway  of  forces  new 
to  her,  and  with  one  of  the  strongest  of  these  forces 
she  herself  at  a  very  early  stage  comes  into  conflict. 
He  holds  beliefs  which  she  asserts  have  no  founda- 
tion in  reason ;  and  his  actions  are  controlled  by 
strange  sanctions  which  she  does  not  acknowledge. 
The  incidents  and  events  connected  with  these  beliefs 
occupy,  however,  a  great  part  of  his  life,  and  begin  to 
influence  his  history  in  a  marked  manner.  He  de- 
velops into  nations  and  attains  to  a  certain  degree  of 
civilisation ;  but  these  beliefs  and  religions  appear  to 
grow  with  his  growth  and  to  develop  with  his  devel- 
opment. A  great  part  of  his  history  continues  to 
be  filled  with  the  controversies,  conflicts,  social  move- 
ments, and  wars  connected  with  them.  Great  social 
systems  arise  in  which  he  reaches  a  high  degree  of 
civilisation,  which  come  into  conflict  and  competition 
with  each  other,  and  which  develop  and  decline  like 
organic  growths.  But  with  the  life  and  development 
of  these  his  religions  are  evidently  still  intimately 
connected  ;  individual  character  is  deeply  affected  ; 
and  the  course  of  history  and  the  whole  character  of 


I  THE  OUTLOOK  21 

social  development  continue  to  be  profoundly  influ- 
enced by  these  religious  systems. 

We  live  at  a  time  when  science  counts  nothing  in- 
significant. She  has  recognised  that  every  organ  and 
every  rudimentary  organ  has  its  utilitarian  history. 
Every  phase  and  attribute  of  life  has  its  meaning  in 
her  eyes ;  nothing  has  come  into  existence  by  chance. 
What  then  are  these  religious  systems  which  fill  such 
a  commanding  place  in  man's  life  and  history  ?  What 
is  their  meaning  and  function  in  social  development  ? 
To  ask  these  questions  is  to  find  that  a  strange  silence 
has  fallen  upon  science.  She  has  no  answer.  Her 
attitude  towards  them  has  been  curious  in  the  ex- 
treme, and  widely  different  from  that  in  which  she 
has  regarded  any  other  of  the  phenomena  of  life. 
From  an  early  stage  in  her  career  we  find  that  she 
has  been  engaged  in  a  personal  quarrel  with  these 
religions,  which  has  developed  into  a  bitter  feud.  In 
any  other  circumstances  it  would  probably  have  oc- 
curred to  science  at  the  outset  to  ask  whether  this 
struggle  had  not  itself  some  meaning,  and  whether  it 
was  not  connected  with  some  deep-seated  law  of  social 
development  which  it  would  be  her  duty  to  investi- 
gate. But  this  aspect  of  the  position  seems,  hitherto, 
to  have  received  scarcely  any  attention.  These  relig- 
ions of  man  form  one  of  the  most  striking  and  per- 
sistent of  the  phenomena  of  life  when  encountered 
under  its  highest  forms,  namely,  in  human  society. 
Yet,  strange  to  say,  science  seems  to  have  taken  up, 
and  to  have  maintained,  down  to  the  present  time, 
the  extraordinary  position  that  her  only  concern  with 
them  is  to  declare  (often,  it  must  be  confessed,  with 
the  heat  and  bitterness  of  a  partisan)  that  they  are 
without  any  foundation  in  reason. 


22  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

Now,  to  any  one  who  has  caught  the  spirit  of  Dar- 
winian science,  it  is  evident  that  this  is  not  the  ques- 
tion at  issue  at  all.  The  question  of  real  importance 
is  not  whether  any  section  of  persons,  however 
learned,  is  of  opinion  that  these  beliefs  are  without 
any  foundation  in  reason,  but  whether  religious  sys- 
tems have  a  function  to  perform  in  the  evolution  of 
society.  If  they  have,  and  one  which  at  all  corre- 
sponds in  magnitude  to  the  scale  on  which  we  find 
the  phenomena  existing,  then  nothing  can  be  more 
certain  than  that  evolution  will  follow  its  course  inde- 
pendent of  our  opinions,  and  that  these  systems  will 
continue  to  the  end,  and  must  be  expected  to  play  as 
great  a  part  in  the  future  as  they  have  done  in  the 
past. 

In  such  circumstances  it  is  evident  that  the  assault 
which  science  has  conducted  against  religion  in  the 
past  would  have  to  be  considered  simply  an  attack  on 
an  empty  fort.  Not  only  has  the  real  position  not 
been  assailed,  but  when  we  are  confronted  with.it,  it 
would  seem  to  be  impregnable.  Many  like  the  late 
Mr.  Cotter  Morison  may  have  been  so  far  impressed 
with  the  course  of  events  in  the  past  as  to  think  that 
religious  beliefs  are  so  far  shaken  that  their  future 
survival  "is  rather  an  object  of  pious  hope  than  of 
reasoned  judgment;"1  or  to  assume,  like  M.  Renan, 
that  they  "  will  die  slowly  out,  undermined  by  primary 
instruction,  and  by  the  predominance  of  scientific 
over  literary  education."2  But  no  greater  mistake 
can  be  made  than  to  imagine  that  there  is  anything 
in  evolutionary  science  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 

1  The  Service  of  Man,  p.  6. 

2  Studies  in  Religious  History,  p.  14. 


i  THE  OUTLOOK  23 

century  to  justify  such  conclusions.  On  the  contrary, 
if  these  beliefs  are  a  factor  in  the  development  which 
society  is  undergoing,  then  the  most  notable  result  of 
the  scientific  revolution  begun  by  Darwin  must  be  to 
establish  them  on  a  foundation  as  broad,  deep,  and 
lasting  as  any  that  the  theologians  have  dreamt  of. 
According  to  the  laws  which  science  has  herself 
enunciated  these  beliefs  must  then  be  expected  to 
remain  to  the  end  a  characteristic  feature  of  our 
social  evolution. 

The  more  we  regard  the  religious  phenomena  of 
mankind  as  a  whole,  the  more  the  conviction  grows 
upon  us  that  here,  as  in  other  departments  of  social 
affairs,  science  has  yet  obtained  no  real  grasp  of  the 
laws  underlying  the  development  which  is  proceeding 
in  society.  These  religious  phenomena  are  certainly 
among  the  most  persistent  and  characteristic  features 
of  the  development  which  we  find  man  undergoing 
in  society.  No  one  who  approaches  the  subject  with 
an  unbiassed  mind  in  the  spirit  of  modern  evolution- 
ary science  can,  for  a  moment,  doubt  that  the  beliefs 
represented  must  have  some  immense  utilitarian  func- 
tion to  perform  in  the  evolution  which  is  proceed- 
ing. Yet  contemporary  literature  may  be  searched 
almost  in  vain  for  evidence  of  any  true  realisation  of 
this  fact.  Even  the  attempt  made  by  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  in  his  Sociology  to  deal  with  the  phenomena 
of  religions  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  conceived  in 
the  spirit  of  evolutionary  science  as  now  understood. 
It  is  hard  to  follow  the  author  in  his  theories  of  the 
development  of  religious  beliefs  from  ghosts  and  an- 
cestor worship,  without  a  continual  feeling  of  disap- 
pointment, and  even  impatience  at  the  triviality  and 


24  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

comparative  insignificance  of  the  explanations  offered 
to  account  for  the  development  of  such  an  imposing 
class  of  social  phenomena.  His  disciples  have  only 
followed  in  the  same  path.  We  find  Mr.  Grant  Allen, 
one  of  the  most  devoted  of  them,  recently,  in  explain- 
ing the  principles  of  his  master,  going  so  far  as  to 
speak  of  a  characteristic  feature  of  the  higher  forms 
of  religion  as  so  much  "grotesque  fungoid  growth," 
which  has  clustered  round  the  primeval  thread  of 
Ancestor  Worship.1  Neither  Mr.  Grant  Allen  nor 
any  other  evolutionist  would  dream  of  describing  the 
mammalian  brain  as  a  grotesque  fungoid  growth  which 
had  clustered  round  the  primitive  dorsal  nerve ;  yet 
such  language  would  not  be  more  short-sighted  than 
that  which  is  here  used  in  discussing  a  feature  of  the 
most  distinctive  class  of  phenomena  which  the  evolu- 
tion of  society  presents. 

In  whatever  direction  we  look,  the  attitude  pre- 
sented by  science  towards  the  social  phenomena  of 
the  day  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  satisfactory.  She 
stands  confronting  the  problems  of  our  time  without 
any  clear  faith  of  her  own.  That  illustrious  school 
of  political  philosophy  which  arose  in  England  with 
Hobbes  and  Locke,  and  which  earlier  in  this  century 
had  attained  to  such  wide  influence  in  the  writings 
of  Hume,  Adam  Smith,  Bentham,  Ricardo,  and  Mill, 
has  towards  our  own  time  become  unduly  narrowed 
and  egotistical  largely  through  its  own  success.  Al- 
though it  has  in  the  past  profoundly  influenced  the 
higher  thought  of  Europe  and  America  in  nearly  all 
its    branches,    and   has    been    in   its    turn    enriched 

1  "  The  Gospel  according  to  Herbert  Spencer,"  Pall  Mall  Gazette, 
28th  April  1890. 


i  THE  OUTLOOK  25 

thereby,  the  departments  into  which  it  has  become 
subdivided  have  shown  a  tendency  to  remain  reserved 
and  exclusive,  and  to  a  large  extent  unaffected  by  the 
progressive  tendencies  and  wider  knowledge  of  our 
time. 

In  this  connection  one  of  the  remarkable  signs  of 
the  time  in  England  of  late  has  been  the  gradually 
spreading  revolt  against  many  of  the  conclusions  of 
the  school  of  political  economy  represented  by  Adam 
Smith,  Ricardo,  and  Mill,  which  has  been  in  the  as- 
cendant throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  century. 
The  earlier  and  vigorous,  though  unofficial  protests 
of  Mr.  Ruskin  and  others  against  the  narrow  reason- 
ing which  regarded  man  in  general  simply  as  a  type 
of  the  "  city  man,"  or,  in  Mr.  Ruskin's  more  forcible 
phraseology,  as  a  mere  covetous  machine,1  have  long 
since  in  Germany  and  America  found  a  voice  amongst 
the  official  exponents  of  the  science.  Even  in  Eng- 
land, writers  like  Jevons  and  Cliffe  Leslie  have  not 
hesitated  to  condemn  many  of  its  dogmatic  tenden- 
cies, and  conclusions  arrived  at  from  narrow  and 
insufficient  premises,  in  terms  almost  as  emphatic. 
"  Adhering  to  lines  of  thought  that  had  been  started 
chiefly  by  mediaeval  traders,  and  continued  by  French 
and  English  philosophers  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  Ricardo  and  his  followers,"  says 
Professor  Marshall,  "  developed  a  theory  of  the  action 
of  free  enterprise  (or  as  they  said  free  competition), 
which  contained  many  truths  that  will  be  of  high 
importance  so  long  as  the  world  exists.  Their  work 
was  wonderfully  complete  within  the  area  which  it 
covered :  but  that  area  was  very  narrow.     Much  of 

1  Vide  his  Unto  this  Last. 


26  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  best  of  it  consists  of  problems  relating  to  rent 
and  the  value  of  corn ;  problems  on  the  solution  of 
which  the  fate  of  England  just  then  seemed  to  depend, 
but  which  in  the  particular  form  in  which  they  were 
worked  up  by  Ricardo  have  very  little  direct  bearing 
on  the  present  state  of  things."  1 

The  school  found  its  highest  expression  in  John 
Stuart  Mill's  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  a  book 
which  has  deeply  influenced  recent  thought  in  Eng- 
land. Mill,  it  has  been  truly  pointed  out,2  has  gone 
far  towards  forming  the  thoughts  of  nearly  all  the 
older  political  economists,  and  in  determining  their 
attitude  to  social  questions.  It  is  true  that  we  have 
evidences  of  a  wide-reaching  change  which  is  now  in 
progress  in  England ;  and  Professor  Marshall's  book, 
Principles  of  Economics,  published  in  1890,  marks  a 
worthy  attempt  to  place  the  science  on  a  firmer  foun- 
dation by  bringing  it  into  more  vitalising  contact  with 
history,  politics,  ethics,  and  even  religion.  The  de- 
parture, it  must  be  confessed,  is,  nevertheless,  but  the 
effort  of  a  department  of  science  to  recover  ground 
which  it  has  lost  largely  through  its  own  faults.  It 
marks  a  somewhat  belated  attempt  to  explain  social 
phenomena  which  political  economists  at  first  ignored, 
and  evidently  did  not  understand,  rather  than  the  de- 
velopment of  a  science  with  a  firm  grasp  of  the  laws 
and  causes  which  are  producing  these  phenomena. 
Judged  by  a  simple  scientific  principle,  recently  laid 
down  by  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen,  our  political  economy 
must  certainly  be  found  wanting.     "  A  genuine  sci- 

1  Principles  of  Economics,  by  Professor  Alfred  Marshall,  vol.  i.  pp. 

92,  93- 

2  Ibid.,  vide  vol.  i.  p.  65. 


I  'THE  OUTLOOK  27 

entific  theory  implies  a  true  estimate  of  the  great 
forces  which  mould  institutions,  and,  therefore,  a  true 
appreciation  of  the  limits  within  which  they  might  be 
modified  by  any  proposed  change."  But  it  can  hardly 
be  claimed  for  economics  in  general  that  it  has  reached 
this  stage.  Our  social  phenomena  seem  to  be  contin- 
ually moving  beyond  its  theories  into  unknown  terri- 
tory, and  we  see  the  economists  following  after  as 
best  they  can,  and,  with  some  loss  of  respect  from 
the  on-lookers,  slowly  and  painfully  adjusting  the  old 
arguments  and  conclusions  to  the  new  phenomena.1 

1  The  development  which  has  been  taking  place  in  the  views  of 
political  economists  during  the  century,  mainly  through  pressure  from 
without,  is  very  fairly  described  by  Professor  Marshall.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century  the  economists  paid  little  attention  to 
the  deeper  problems  of  human  nature  which  will  always  underlie  the 
science.  "  Flushed  with  their  victories  over  a  set  of  much  more  solid 
thinkers  they  did  not  trouble  themselves  to  examine  any  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  socialists,  and  least  of  all  their  speculations  as  to  human  nature. 
But  the  socialists  were  men  who  had  felt  intensely,  and  who  knew  some- 
thing about  the  hidden  springs  of  human  action  of  which  the  econo- 
mists took  no  account.  Buried  among  their  wild  rhapsodies  there  were 
shrewd  observations  and  pregnant  suggestions  from  which  philosophers 
and  economists  had  much  to  learn.  And  gradually  their  influence 
began  to  tell.  Comte's  debts  to  them  were  very  great ;  and  the  crisis 
of  John  Stuart  Mill's  life,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  autobiography,  came  to 
him  from  reading  them." 

"  When  we  come  later  on  to  compare  the  modern  view  of  the  vital 
problem  of  distribution  with  that  which  prevailed  at  the  beginning  of 
the  century,  we  shall  find  that  over  and  above  all  changes  in  detail,  and 
all  improvements  in  scientific  accuracy  of  reasoning,  there  is  a  funda- 
mental change  in  treatment ;  for  while  the  earlier  economists  argued  as 
though  man's  character  and  efficiency  were  to  be  "regarded  as  a  fixed 
quantity,  modern  economists  keep  carefully  in  mind  the  fact  that  it  is 
a  product  of  the  circumstances  under  which  he  has  lived.  This  change 
in  the  point  of  view  of  economics  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
changes  in  human  nature  during  the  last  fifty  years  have  been  so  rapid 
as  to  force  themselves  on  the  attention  ;   partly  it  has  been  due  to  the 


28  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

It  is  almost  the  same  with  the  other  sciences  which 
deal  with  our  social  affairs.  The  comparative  barren- 
ness which  appears  to  distinguish  them,  when  we  re- 
gard the  work  done  during  the  century  in  the  lower 
branches  of  science,  is  striking,  and  it  is  doubtless 
largely  due  to  the  point  of  view  from  which  they  have 
been  approached.  In  nothing  does  Professor  Mar- 
shall show  truer  philosophical  insight  than  in  remark- 
ing how  deeply  economics  now  tends  to  be  affected 
by  the  developments  which  the  biological  sciences 
have  undergone  during  the  century,  and  in  noting  its 
relationship  to  these  sciences  rather  than  to  the 
mathematico-physical  group  upon  which  it  leant  at 
the  beginning  of  the  century.1  By  those  sciences 
which  deal  with  human  society  it  seems  to  have  been 
for  long  ignored  or  forgotten  that  in  that  society  we 
are  merely  regarding  the  highest  phenomena  in  the 
history  of  life,  and  that  consequently  all  departments 
of  knowledge  which  deal  with  social  phenomena  have 
their  true  foundation  in  the  biological  sciences. 

Even  in  economics,  despite  recent  advances,  it  does 
not  yet  seem  to  be  recognised  that  a  knowledge  of 
the  fundamental  principles  of  biology,  and  of  the  laws 
which  have  controlled  the  development  of  life  up  to 
human  society,  is  any  necessary  part  of  the  outfit 
with  which  to  approach  the  study  of  this  science.  In 
history  the  divorce  is  even  more  complete.  We  have 
the  historian  dealing  with  the  record  of  life  in  its 
highest  forms,  and  recognised  as  the  interpreter  of 
the  rich  and  varied  record  of  man's  social  phenomena 

influence  of  individual  writers,  socialists,  and  others  ;   and  it  has  been 
produced  by  a  parallel  change  in  other  sciences."     Vol.  i.  pp.  63,  64. 
1  Principles  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  pp.  64,  65. 


I  THE  OUTLOOK  29 

in  the  past ;  yet,  strange  to  say,  feeling  it  scarcely 
necessary  to  take  any  interest  in  those  sciences  which 
in  the  truest  sense  lead  up  to  his  subject.  It  is  hardly 
to  be  wondered  at  if  he  has  so  far  scarcely  succeeded 
in  raising  history,  even  in  name,  to  the  dignity  of  a 
science.  Despite  the  advances  which  have  recently 
been  made  in  Germany  and  England,  historical 
science  is  still  a  department  of  knowledge  almost 
without  generalisations  of  the  nature  of  laws.  The 
historian  takes  us  through  events  of  the  past,  through 
the  rise  and  decline  of  great  civilisations  where  we 
seem  to  recognise  many  of  the  well-known  phenomena 
of  life,  through  the  development  of  social  systems 
which  are  even  spoken  of  as  organic  growths,  through 
a  social  development  which  is  evidently  progressing 
in  some  definite  direction,  and  sets  us  down  at  last 
with  our  faces  to  the  future  with  scarcely  a  hint  as  to 
any  law  underlying  it  all,  or  indication  as  to  where 
our  own  civilisation  is  tending.  Those  who  remem- 
ber the  impression  not  so  long  ago  created  in  England 
by  the  modest  attempt  of  Professor  Freeman  to  bring 
us  merely  to  see  that  history  was  past  politics,  and 
politics  but  present  history,  will  feel  how  far  off  in- 
deed historical  science  still  is  from  the  goal  at  which 
it  aims. 

Yet  the  social  phenomena  which  are  treated  of 
under  the  heads  of  politics,  history,  ethics,  economics, 
and  religion  must  all  be  regarded  as  but  the  intimately 
related  phenomena  of  the  science  of  life  under  its  most 
complex  aspect.  The  biologist  whose  crowning  work 
in  the  century  has  been  the  establishment  of  order 
and  law  in  the  lower  branches  of  his  subject  has  car- 
ried us  up  to  human  society  and  there  left  us  without 


30.  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap,  i 

a  guide.  It  is  true  that  at  an  earlier  stage  he  has 
been  warned  off  the  ground  at  the  other  side  and 
treated  with  bitterness  and  intolerance.  But  there  is 
no  reason  why  the  remembrance  of  such  treatment 
should  cause  him  still  to  so  far  forget  himself  and  his 
duty  to  science,  that  we  should  find  him  in  a  state  of 
mind  capable  of  speaking  of  any  class  of  social  phe- 
nomena as  grotesque  fungoid  growths.  In  the  mean- 
time, each  of  the  departments  of  knowledge  which 
has  dealt  with  man  in  society  has  regarded  him  al- 
most exclusively  from  its  own  standpoint.  To  the 
politician  he  has  been  the  mere  opportunist  ;  to  the 
historian  he  has  been  the  unit  which  is  the  sport  of 
blind  forces  apparently  subject  to  no  law ;  to  the 
exponent  of  religion  he  has  been  the  creature  of 
another  world  ;  to  the  political  economist  he  has  been 
little  more  than  the  covetous  machine.  The  time 
has  come,  it  would  appear,  for  a  better  understanding 
and  for  a  more  radical  method  ;  for  the  social  sciences 
to  strengthen  themselves  by  sending  their  roots  deep 
into  the  soil  underneath  from  which  they  spring  ;  and 
for  the  biologist  to  advance  over  the  frontier  and 
carry  the  methods  of  his  science  boldly  into  human 
society  where  he  has  but  to  deal  with  the  phenomena 
of  life  where  he  encounters  life  at  last  under  its  high- 
est and  most  complex  aspect. 


CHAPTER  II 

CONDITIONS    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS 

Let  us,  as  far  as  possible,  unbiassed  by  pre-con- 
ceived  ideas,  endeavour,  before  we  proceed  further,  to 
obtain  some  clear  conception  of  what  human  society 
really  is,  and  of  the  nature  of  the  conditions  which 
have  been  attendant  on  the  progress  we  have  made 
so  far. 

There  is  no  phenomenon  so  stupendous,  so  bewil- 
dering, and  withal  so  interesting  to  man  as  that  of  his 
own  evolution  in  society.  The  period  it  has  occupied 
in  his  history  is  short  compared  with  the  whole  span 
of  that  history ;  yet  the  results  obtained  are  strik- 
ing beyond  comparison.  Looking  back  through  the 
glasses  of  modern  science  we  behold  him  at  first  out- 
wardly a  brute,  feebly  holding  his  own  against  many 
fierce  competitors.  He  has  no  wants  above  those  of 
the  beast ;  he  lives  in  holes  and  dens  in  the  rocks ; 
he  is  a  brute,  even  more  feeble  in  body  than  many  of 
the  animals  with  which  he  struggles  for  a  brute's 
portion.  Tens  of  thousands  of  years  pass  over  him, 
and  his  progress  is  slow  and  painful  to  a  degree. 
The  dim  light  which  inwardly  illumines  him  has 
grown  brighter ;  the  rude  weapons  which  aid  his  natu- 
ral helplessness  are  better  shaped  ;  the  cunning  with 
which  he  circumvents  his  prey,  and  which  helps  him 
against  his  enemies,  is  of  a  higher  order.     But  he 

31 


32  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

continues  to  leave  little  impress  on  nature  or  his  sur- 
roundings ;  he  is  still  in  wants  and  instincts  merely 
as  his  fellow  denizens  of  the  wilderness. 

We  look  again,  and  a  marvellous  transformation 
has  taken  place  —  a  transformation  which  is  without 
any  parallel  in  the  previous  history  of  life.  This 
brute-like  creature,  which  for  long  ages  lurked  in  the 
woods  and  amongst  the  rocks,  scarcely  to  all  appear- 
ances of  so  much  account  as  the  higher  carnivora 
with  which  he  competed  for  a  scanty  subsistence,  has 
obtained  mastery  over  the  whole  earth.  He  has  organ- 
ised himself  into  great  societies.  The  brutes  are 
no  longer  his  companions  and  competitors.  He  has 
changed  the  face  of  continents.  The  earth  produces 
at  his  will ;  all  its  resources  are  his.  The  secrets  of 
the  universe  have  been  plumbed,  and  with  the  knowl- 
edge obtained  he  has  turned  the  world  into  a  vast 
workshop  where  all  the  powers  of  nature  work  sub- 
missively in  bondage  to  supply  his  wants.  His  power 
at  length  appears  illimitable  ;  for  the  source  of  it  is 
the  boundless  wealth  of  knowledge  which  is  stored  up 
in  the  great  civilisations  he  has  developed  and  which 
ever  continues  to  increase,  every  addition  thereto 
but  offering  new  opportunities  for  further  expansion. 

But  when  we  come  to  examine  the  causes  of  this 
remarkable  development  we  find  the  greatest  obscurity 
prevailing.  Man  himself  has  hitherto  viewed  his  prog- 
ress with  a  species  of  awe  ;  so  much  so  that  he  often 
seems  to  hesitate  to  regard  it  as  a  natural  phenome- 
non, and  therefore  under  the  control  of  natural  laws. 
To  all  of  us  it  is  from  its  very  nature  bewildering ; 
to  many  it  is  in  addition  mysterious,  marvellous, 
supernatural. 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN   PROGRESS  33 

In  proceeding  to  discuss  in  what  manner  natural 
laws  have  operated  in  producing  the  advance  man  has 
made  in  society  we  must  endeavour  to  approach  the 
subject  without  bias  or  prejudice;  if  possible  in  the 
same  spirit  in  which  the  historian  feels  it  to  be  his 
duty  to  deal  with  human  history  so  far  as  it  extends 
before  his  more  limited  view,  or  in  which  the  biologist 
has  dealt  with  the  phenomena  of  the  development  of 
life  elsewhere.  Man,  since  we  first  encounter  him, 
has  made  ceaseless  progress  upwards,  and  this  prog- 
ress continues  before  our  eyes.  But  it  has  never 
been,  nor  is  it  now,  an  equal  advance  of  the  whole  of 
the  race.  Looking  back  we  see  that  the  road  by 
which  he  has  come  is  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of 
nations,  races,  and  civilisations,  that  have  fallen  by 
the  way,  pushed  aside  by  the  operation  of  laws  which 
it  takes  no  eye  of  faith  to  distinguish  at  work  amongst 
us  at  the  present  time  as  surely  and  as  effectively  as 
at  any  past  period.  Social  systems  and  civilisations 
resemble  individuals  in  one  respect ;  they  are  organic 
growths,  apparently  possessing  definite  laws  of  health 
and  development.  Such  laws  science  has  already 
defined  for  the  individual,  it  should  also  be  her  duty 
to  endeavour  to  define  them  for  society. 

It  is  desirable  at  the  outset  to  be  able  to  realise  the 
importance  of  a  preliminary  study  of  the  laws  which 
have  operated  in  shaping  the  development  of  life  else- 
where. These  laws,  the  observer  soon  convinces  him- 
self, have  not  been  suspended  in  human  society.  On 
the  contrary,  he  sees  that  they  must  have  their  most 
important  seat  of  action  there.  To  recognise  this 
truth  one  has  only  to  remember  that  the  discovery 
which  in  our  time  has  raised   biology  from  a  mere 


34  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

record  of  isolated  facts  to  a  majestic  story  of  orderly 
progress  was  not  suggested  by  the  study  of  life 
amongst  the  lower  animals.  The  law,  by  the  enun- 
ciation of  which  Darwin  most  advanced  the  science 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  took  shape  in  the  mind 
of  the  great  biologist  after  observation  of  human 
society,  and  that  society,  in  particular,  which  we  see 
around  us  at  the  present  day.1  All  the  work,  so  far, 
of  evolutionary  science,  should  be  preliminary  to  a 
higher  end  ;  enriched  with  the  harvest  of  information 
gathered  in  other  fields,  and  equipped  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  principles,  it  should  now  return  to  human 
society  and  endeavour  to  trace  the  workings  of  its 
own  laws  under  the  complex  conditions  there  pre- 
vailing. 

Putting  aside  then  at  first  all  question  of  the  future, 
let  us  see  if  we  can  say,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
evolutionary  science,  what  have  been  the  conditions 
of  human  progress  in  the  past. 

Looking  round  to-day  at  the  lowest  existing  types 
of  humanity  and  comparing  them  with  the  highest, 
one  feels  immediately  constrained  to  ask  —  Do  we 
ever  fully  realise  how  this  advance  of  which  we  are 

1  Speaking  of  the  workings  of  his  mind  before  the  Origin  of  Species 
was  begun,  Darwin  says,  "  In  October  1838,  that  is,  fifteen  months 
after  I  had  begun  my  systematic  inquiry,  I  happened  to  read  for  amuse- 
ment Malthus  on  population;  and  being  well  prepared  to  appreciate 
the  struggle  for  existence  which  everywhere  goes  on,  from  long  con- 
tinued observation  of  the  habits  of  animals  and  plants,  it  at  once  struck 
me  that,  under  these  circumstances,  favourable  variations  would  tend 
to  be  preserved  and  unfavourable  ones  to  be  destroyed.  The  result  of 
this  would  be  the  foundation  of  a  new  species.  Here,  then,  I  had  at 
last  got  a  theory  by  which  to  work." —  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Darwin, 
by  his  son,  F.  Darwin.     Autobiographical  chapter,  vol.  i. 


II  CONDITIONS  OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS  35 

so  proud,  and  which  is  represented  by  the  intellectual 
and  social  distance  between  these  two  extremes,  has 
been  brought  about  ?  We  talk  vaguely  about  it,  and 
take  for  granted  many  things  in  connection  with  it ; 
but  the  number  of  those  who  have  grasped  certain 
elementary  biological  laws  of  which  it  is  the  result, 
and  which  have  controlled  and  directed  it  as  rigidly 
as  the  law  of  gravity  controls  and  directs  a  body  fall- 
ing to  the  earth,  is  surprisingly  small. 

In  attempting  to  explain  what  these  biological  laws 
are  it  will  be  necessary,  in  order  to  clear  the  ground, 
to  leave  for  later  consideration  the  more  special  and 
peculiar  features  which  man's  evolution  in  society 
presents,  and  to  confine  ourselves  in  this  chapter  to 
the  task  of  bringing  into  due  prominence  certain  fun- 
damental principles  of  development  which  are  pro- 
foundly affecting  him,  in  common  with  all  other  forms 
of  life ;  but  which  are,  as  a  general  rule,  ignored  or 
overlooked  in  the  greater  part  of  the  literature  on 
social  questions  and  social  progress  which  is  the 
product  of  our  time.  It  is  of  no  little  importance 
to  begin  at  the  beginning  in  these  matters.  We  find 
man  in  everyday  life  continually  subject  to  laws  and 
conditions  which  have  been  imposed  upon  him  in 
common  with  all  the  rest  of  creation,  and  we  accept 
these  conditions  and  make  it  our  business  to  learn 
all  we  can  of  them.  If  in  following  his  evolution  in 
society,  we  find  him  in  like  manner  subject  to  laws 
which  have  governed  the  development  of  the  lower 
forms  of  life,  and  which  are  merely  operating  in  so- 
ciety under  more  complex  conditions,  it  is  also  our 
duty,  if  we  would  comprehend  our  own  history,  to 
take  these  laws  as  we  find  them,  and  to  endeavour, 


36  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

at  the  very  earliest  stage,  to  understand  them  as  far 
as  possible. 

Now,  at  the  outset,  we  find  man  to  be  in  one  re- 
spect exactly  like  all  the  creatures  which  have  come 
before  him.  He  reproduces  his  kind  from  generation 
to  generation.  In  doing  so  he  is  subject  to  a  law 
which  must  never  be  lost  sight  of.  Left  to  himself, 
this  high-born  creature,  whose  progress  we  seem  to 
take  for  granted,  has  not  the  slightest  innate  tendency 
to  make  any  onward  progress  whatever.  It  may  ap- 
pear strange,  but  it  is  strictly  true,  that  'if  each  of  us 
were  allowed  by  the  conditions  of  life  to  follow  his 
own  inclinations,  the  average  of  one  generation  would 
have  no  tendency  whatever  to  rise  beyond  the  average 
of  the  preceding  one,  but  distinctly  the  reverse.  This 
is  not  a  peculiarity  of  man ;  it  has  been  a  law  of  life 
from  the  beginning,  and  it  continues  to  be  a  universal 
law  which  we  have  no  power  to  alter.  How  then  is 
progress  possible  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  is 
the  starting-point  of  all  the  science  of  human  society. 

Progress  everywhere  from  the  beginning  of  life  has 
been  effected  in  the  same  way,  and  it  is  possible  in 
no  other  way.  It  is  the  result  of  selection  and  rejec- 
tion. In  the  human  species,  as  in  every  other  species 
which  has  ever  existed,  no  two  individuals  of  a  gen- 
eration are  alike  in  all  respects ;  there  is  infinite 
variation  within  certain  narrow  limits.  Some  are 
slightly  above  the  average  in  a  particular  direction 
as  others  are  below  it ;  and  it  is  only  when  conditions 
prevail  which  are  favourable  to  a  preponderating  re- 
production of  the  former  that  advance  in  any  direc- 
tion becomes  possible.  To  formulate  this  as  the 
immutable  law  of  progress  since  the  beginning  of  life 


II  CONDITIONS  OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS  37 

has  been  one  of  the  principal  results  of  the  biological 
science  of  the  century;  and  recent  work,  including 
the  remarkable  contributions  of  Professor  Weismann 
in  Germany,  has  all  tended  to  establish  it  on  founda- 
tions which  are  not  now  likely  to  be  shaken.  To  put 
it  in  words  used  by  Professor  Flower  in  speaking  of 
human  society,  "  Progress  has  been  due  to  the  oppor- 
tunity of  those  individuals  who  are  a  little  superior  in 
some  respects  to  their  fellows,  of  asserting  their  supe- 
riority and  of  continuing  to  live  and  of  promulgating 
as  an  inheritance  that  superiority." *  The  recogni- 
tion of  this  law  must  be  the  first  step  towards  any 
true  science  of  society  ;  and  it  is  only  right  that  we 
should  find  Professor  Flower  insisting,  although  such 
a  spectacle  is  somewhat  unusual  at  present  amongst 
exponents  of  biological  science,  that  it  is  "  the  mes- 
sage which  pure  and  abstract  biological  research  has 
sent  to  help  us  on  with  some  of  the  commonest  prob- 
lems of  human  life."  2  Where  there  is  progress  there 
must  inevitably  be  selection,  and  selection  must  in 
its  turn  involve  competition  of  some  kind. 

But  let  us  deal  first  with  the  necessity  for  progress. 
From  time  to  time  we  find  the  question  discussed  by 
many  who  only  imperfectly  understand  the  conditions 
to  which  life  is  subject,  as  to  whether  progress  is  worth 
the  price  paid  for  it.  But  we  have  really  no  choice  in 
the  matter.  Progress  is  a  necessity  from  which  there 
is  simply  no  escape,  and  from  which  there  has  never 
been  any  escape  since  the  beginning  of  life.  Look- 
ing back  through  the  history  of  life  anterior  to  man, 
we  find  it  to  be  a  record  of  ceaseless  progress  on  the 

1  Reply  to  an  Address  by  the  Trades  Council,  Newcastle,  Septem- 
ber 1889.  2  Ibid. 


38  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

one  hand,  and  ceaseless  stress  and  competition  on 
the  other.  This  orderly  and  beautiful  world  which 
we  see  around  us  is  now,  and  always  has  been,  the 
scene  of  incessant  rivalry  between  all  the  forms  of 
life  inhabiting  it  —  rivalry,  too,  not  chiefly  conducted 
between  different  species  but  between  members  of 
the  same  species.  The  plants  in  the  green  sward 
beneath  our  feet  are  engaged  in  silent  rivalry  with 
each  other,  a  rivalry  which  if  allowed  to  proceed  with- 
out outside  interference  would  know  no  pause  until 
the  weaker  were  exterminated.  Every  part,  organ, 
or  quality  of  these  plants  which  calls  forth  admiration 
for  its  beauty  or  perfection,  has  its  place  and  mean- 
ing in  this  struggle,  and  has  been  acquired  to  ensure 
success  therein.  The  trees  of  the  forest  which  clothe 
and  beautify  the  landscape  are  in  a  state  of  nature 
engaged  in  the  same  rivalry  with  each  other.  Left 
to  themselves  they  fight  out,  as  unmistakable  records 
have  shown,  a  stubborn  struggle  extending  over  cen- 
turies in  which  at  last  only  those  forms  most  suitable 
to  the  conditions  of  the  locality  retain  their  places. 
But  so  far  we  view  the  rivalry  under  simple  condi- 
tions ;  it  is  amongst  the  forms  of  amimal  life  as  we 
begin  to  watch  the  gradual  progress  upwards  to  higher 
types  that  it  becomes  many-sided  and  complex. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  we  encounter  a  feature  of 
the  struggle  which  recent  developments  of  biological 
science  tend  to  bring  into  ever-increasing  prominence. 
The  first  necessity  for  every  successful  form  engaged 
in  this  struggle  is  the  capacity  for  reproduction  be- 
yond the  limits  which  the  conditions  of  life  for  the 
time  being  comfortably  provide  for.  The  capacity  for 
multiplying  in  this  way  is  at  first  one  of  the  principal 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS  39 

resources  in  the  development  upwards,  and  in  the 
lower  forms  of  life  it  is  still  almost  the  sole  equip- 
ment. But  as  progress  begins  to  be  made,  a  deeper 
cause,  the  almost  illimitable  significance  of  which 
science  is  beginning  to  appreciate,  requires  that  all 
the  successful  forms  must  multiply  beyond  the  limits 
of  comfortable  existence. 

Recent  biological  researches,  and  more  particularly 
the  investigations  and  conclusions  of  Professor  Weis- 
mann,  have  tended  to  greatly  develop  Darwin's  origi- 
nal hypothesis  as  to  the  conditions  under  which 
progress  has  been  made  in  the  various  forms  of  life. 
It  is  now  coming  to  be  recognised  as  a  necessarily 
inherent  part  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  that  if  the 
continual  selection  which  is  always  going  on  amongst 
the  higher  forms  of  life  were  to  be  suspended,  these 
forms  would  not  only  possess  no  tendency  to  make 
progress  forwards,  but  must  actually  go  backwards. 
That  is  to  say,  if  all  the  individtials  of  every  getiera- 
tion  in  any  species  were  allowed  to  equally  propagate 
their  kind,  the  average  of  each  generation  would  con- 
tinually tend  to  fall  below  the  average  of  the  genera- 
tion which  preceded  it>  and  a  process  of  slow  but 
steady  degeneration  would  ensue}     It   is,    therefore, 

1  The  significance  of  this  recent  development  of  biological  science  is 
scarcely  as  yet  realised  outside  the  department  of  knowledge  which  it 
more  immediately  concerns.  But  that  the  higher  branches  of  thought 
must  in  time  be  profoundly  affected  by  it,  is  certain.  What  we  are 
coming  to  see  is,  that,  as  the  higher  forms  of  life  have  behind  them  an 
immense  line  of  ancestry  of  lower  development,  the  tendency  of  every 
organ  to  fail  to  reach  its  maximum  development  is  a  constant  quantity 
which  outweighs  in  the  average,  where  it  is  allowed  to  act,  all  other 
developmental  tendencies  whatever.  It  is  only  by  continual  selection 
that  this  tendency  can  be  kept  in  check.     In  order  that  any  part,  organ, 


40  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

an  inevitable  law  of  life  amongst  the4 higher  forms, 
that  competition  and  selection  must  not  only  always 
accompany  progress,  but  that  they  must  prevail 
amongst  every  form  of  life  which  is  not  actually  ret- 
rograding. Every  successful  form  must,  of  neces- 
sity, multiply  beyond  the  limits  which  the  average 
conditions  of  life  comfortably  provide  for.  Other 
things  being  equal,  indeed,  the  wider  the  limits  of 
selection,  the  keener  the  rivalry,  and  the  more  rigid 
the  selection,  the  greater  will  be  the  progress ;  but 
rivalry  and  selection  in  some  degree  there  must  inevi- 
tably be. 

The  first  condition  of  existence  with  a  progressive 
form  is,  therefore,  one  of  continual  strain  and  stress, 
and  along  its  upward  path  this  condition  is  always 
maintained.  Once  begun,  too,  there  can  be  no  pause 
in  the  advance ;  for  if  by  any  combination  of  circum- 
stances the  rivalry  and  selection  cease,  then  progress 
ceases  with  them,  and  the  species  or  group  cannot 
maintain  its  place ;  it  has  taken  the  first  retrograde 
step,  and  it  is  immediately  placed  at  a  disadvantage 
with  other  species,  or  with  those  groups  of  its  own 

or  quality  may  be  kept  at  the  maximum  degree  of  development,  it  is 
necessary  that  individuals  possessing  it  in  a  less  perfect  degree,  must  be 
prevented  from  propagation.  If  in  any  species  all  the  individuals  are 
allowed  to  equally  propagate  their  kind,  there  follows  a  mixture  of  all 
possible  degrees  of  perfection,  resulting,  in  course  of  time,  in  a  steady 
deterioration  of  average  development.  This  conclusion  which  biology 
is  now  approaching,  greatly  enlarges  the  Darwinian  hypothesis.  The 
selection  of  the  fittest  acquires  an  immensely  widened  significance,  if 
we  realise  it  to  be  an  inherent  principle  of  life,  that,  by  the  simple  pro- 
cess of  the  individuals  of  each  generation  propagating  their  kind  with- 
out selection,  the  higher  forms  of  life  would  tend  to  gradually  sink 
back  again  by  a  degenerative  process  through  those  stages  of  develop- 
ment by  which  they  reached  their  present  position. 


II     ?  CONDITIONS  OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS  41 

kind  where  the  rivalry  still  goes  on,  and  where  selec- 
tion, adaptation,  and  progress  continue  unchecked. 
So  keen  is  the  rivalry  throughout,  that  the  number 
of  successful  forms  is  small  in  comparison  with  the 
number  which  have  failed.  Looking  round  us  at  the 
forms  of  life  in  the  world  at  the  present  day,  we  see, 
as  it  were,  only  the  isolated  peaks  of  the  great  range 
of  life,  the  gaps  and  valleys  between  representing  the 
number  of  forms  which  have  disappeared  in  the  wear 
and  stress  of  evolution. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  regard  this  rivalry  from  a 
very  common  point  of  view,  and  to  think  that  the 
extinction  of  less  efficient  forms  has  been  the  same 
thing  as  the  extermination  of  the  individuals  com- 
prising them.  This,  as  we  shall  see,  is  not  so.  With 
whatever  feelings  we  may  regard  the  conflict,  it  is, 
however,  necessary  to  remember  that  it  is  the  first 
condition  of  progress.  It  leads  continually  onwards 
and  upwards.  From  this  stress  of  nature  has  fol- 
lowed the  highest  result  we  are  capable  of  conceiv- 
ing, namely,  continual  advance  towards  higher  and 
more  perfect  forms  of  life.  Out  of  it  has  arisen 
every  attribute  of  form,  colour,  instinct,  strength, 
courage,  nobility,  and  beauty  in  the  teeming  and 
wonderful  world  of  life  around  us.  To  it  we  owe 
all  that  is  best  and  most  perfect  in  life  at  the  present 
day,  as  well  as  all  its  highest  promise  for  the  future. 
The  law  of  life  has  been  always  the  same  from  the 
beginning, — ceaseless  and  inevitable  struggle  and 
competition,  ceaseless  and  inevitable  selection  and 
rejection,  ceaseless  and  inevitable  progress. 

When  at  last  we  reach  man,  the  stage  enlarges. 
We  find  him  born  into  the  world  with  two  new  forces 


42  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

destined  eventually  to  revolutionise  it ;  namely,  his 
reason  and  his  capacity  for  acting  in  concert  with  his 
fellows  in  organised  societies.  The  conditions  and 
limitations  of  existence  have  been  altered,  new  and 
complex  conditions  have  arisen,  and  the  great  drama 
slowly  unfolds  itself.  We  shall  presently  have  to  deal 
with  those  special  aspects  which  man's  evolution  in 
society  presents ;  but  in  this  chapter  it  is  necessary 
to  keep  the  mind  fixed  upon  one  fundamental  feature 
of  the  development  which  we  see  in  progress. 

As  we  watch  man's  advance  in  society,  the  con- 
viction slowly  forces  itself  upon  us  that  the  conflict 
which  has  been  waged  from  the  beginning  of  life  has 
not  been  suspended  in  his  case,  but  that  it  has  pro- 
jected itself  into  the  new  era.  Nay,  more,  all  the 
evidence  would  seem  to  suggest  that  he  remains  as 
powerless  to  escape  from  it  as  the  lowliest  organism 
in  the  scale  of  life.  When  we  look  back  over  history, 
and  regard  it  with  those  feelings  of  humanity  which 
have  been  developed  to  such  an  extraordinary  degree 
by  the  process  of  evolution  which  is  in  progress  in 
our  Western  civilisation,  it  appears  without  doubt  an 
unparalleled  record  of  rivalry  and  stress.  When  man 
first  gathered  himself  into  societies,  and  for  long  ages 
before  we  have  any  definite  information  about  him, 
his  history  must  have  been  one  of  endless  conflict. 
Some  faint  conception  of  it  may  be  obtained  from  the 
study  of  the  history  of  savage  tribes  of  the  present 
day.  The  wars  constantly  waged  between  societies  — 
those  ceaseless  armed  struggles  carried  on  by  group 
against  group,  and  apparently  continued  purely  from 
a  fighting  instinct  —  must  have  formed  one  of  his 
most  persistent  characteristics.     The  strife  can  have 


II  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN    PROGRESS  43 

known  no  pause  save  that  enforced  from  time  to  time 
by  exhaustion.  That  whole  sections  of  the  race  must 
in  this  manner  have  repeatedly  disappeared  before 
stronger  and  more  efficient  peoples,  science  leaves  us 
in  little  doubt.  How  the  conflict  must  have  gone  on 
during  all  that  immense  period  when  man  was  slowly 
toiling  up  the  long  slope  which  brings  him  within  the 
purview  of  history,  the  imagination  can  only  feebly 
picture. 

At  last  when  history  takes  account  of  him,  his 
onward  path  appears  to  be  pursued  under  the  same 
conditions,  namely,  continual  rivalry  and  conflict  with 
his  fellows.  The  first  prominent  feature  which  we 
have  everywhere  to  notice  in  groups  and  associations 
of  primitive  men  is  their  military  character.  In 
whatever  part  of  the  world  savage  man  has  been  met 
with,  he  is  engaged  in  continuous  warfare.  The 
great  business  in  the  life  of  the  society  to  which  he 
belongs,  is  always  war  with  other  societies  of  the 
same  kind.  To  ensure  success  in  this  direction, 
every  aspiration  of  the  individual  and  the  community 
seems  to  be  directed.  Savage  societies  rise,  flourish, 
and  disappear  with  marvellous  rapidity,  but  the  secret 
of  their  progress  or  decadence  is  always  the  same  — 
they  have  grown  strong  or  weak  as  fighting  organisa- 
tions. In  the  individual,  every  attribute  and  quality 
which  tends  to  military  success  is  prized  ;  every  other 
is  despised,  or  held  in  less  respect ;  and  all  the  ability 
which  the  society  produces  must  find  an  outlet  in 
this  direction.  The  past  and  present  of  uncivilised 
man  may  be  summed  up  in  a  single  pregnant  sentence 
once  used  by  one  of  our  military  commanders1  in 

1  Lord  Wolseley,  "  The  Negro  as  a  Soldier,"  Fortnightly  Review, 
December  1888. 


44  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

recounting  the  history  of  the  tribes  with  which  he 
came  into  conflict  in  different  parts  of  Africa.  "  In 
whatever  negro  people  a  great  lawgiver  has  appeared, 
there  a  powerful  army  and  a  military  spirit  has  been 
called  into  existence,  and  the  nation  has  prospered 
until  its  national  existence  has  been  destroyed  by  a 
still  stronger  people."  This  is  the  brief  history  of 
savage  man  from  the  beginning. 

In  all  this  we  have  to  notice  a  feature  of  impor- 
tance. The  progress  of  savage  man,  such  as  it  is, 
is  born  strictly  of  the  conditions  in  which  he  lives. 
Aimless  as  his  history  might  seem  when  viewed  from 
the  level  on  which  it  is  enacted,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
of  the  progress  made.  But  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
progress  there  can  also  be  no  mistake.  It  is  at  once 
both  inevitable  and  involuntary,  the  product  of  the 
strenuous  conditions  under  which  he  lives.  One  of 
the  commonest  ideas  surviving  from  a  pre-evolution- 
ary  period  is  that  which  represents  the  stages  of 
man's  social  progress  as  being  steps  in  advance  con- 
sciously and  voluntarily  taken.  Rousseau's  picture  of 
him  leaving  "the  state  of  nature  "  to  put  "his  person 
and  his  power  under  the  superior  direction  of  the 
general  will "  with  certain  imaginary  reservations,1 
survives  even  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  who  sees  him 
leaving  this  state  and  submitting  to  political  subordi- 
nation "through  experience  of  the  increased  satisfac- 
tion derived  under  it." 2  But  man  in  making  the 
momentous  advance  from  a  more  primitive  state  to 
the  first  beginnings  of  organised  society  must  have 
acted  without  any  conscious  regard,  either  to  expedi- 
ency or  increased  satisfactions,  or  any  other  of  the 

1  Vide  his  Contrat  Social  2  Data  of  Ethics. 


II  CONDITIONS  OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS  45 

considerations  which  philosophical  writers  have  so 
often  attributed  to  him ;  his  progress  was  beyond 
doubt  the  result  of  the  conditions  of  his  life,  and  was 
made  under  force  of  circumstances  over  which  he  had 
no  control.  His  first  organised  societies  must  have 
been  developed  like  any  other  advantage,  under  the 
sternest  conditions  of  natural  selection.  In  the  flux 
and  change  of  life  the  members  of  those  groups  of 
men  which  in  favourable  conditions  first  showed  any 
tendency  to  social  organisation,  became  possessed  of 
a  great  advantage  over  their  fellows,  and  these  soci- 
eties grew  up  simply  because  they  possessed  elements 
of  strength  which  led  to  the  disappearance  before 
them  of  other  groups  of  men  with  which  they  came 
into  competition.  Such  societies  continued  to  flour- 
ish until  they  in  their  turn  had  to  give  way  before 
other  associations  of  men  of  higher  social  efficiency. 
This,  we  may  venture  to  assert,  is  the  simple  history 
of  a  stage  in  human  development  over  which  much 
controversy  has  taken  place. 

As  we  watch  the  growth  of  the  great  powers  of 
antiquity,  the  Babylonian,  Assyrian,  and  Persian 
empires,  and  the  Greek  states,  we  find  that  it  is  made 
under  the  same  conditions  of  stress  and  conflict. 
States  are  cradled  and  nurtured  in  continuous  war, 
and  grow  up  by  a  kind  of  natural  selection,  having 
worsted  and  subordinated  their  competitors  in  the 
long-drawn-out  rivalry  through  which  they  survive. 
In  the  Roman  Empire  we  reach  at  length  the  cul- 
minating point  in  an  immensely  long  stage  of  human 
history,  during  the  whole  of  which  the  struggle  for 
existence  is  waged  mainly  under  military  forms  be- 
tween societies  organised  for  war  against  each  other. 


46  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

Ancient  Rome  was  a  small  city  state  which  grew  to 
be  mistress  of  the  world  by  a  process  of  natural  selec- 
tion, its  career  from  the  beginning  being  a  record  of 
incessant  fighting.  From  the  outset  the  Roman  peo- 
ple devoted  all  their  best  energies  to  the  furtherance 
of  schemes  of  conquest.  The  state  was  organised  to 
ensure  military  success  ;  the  highest  ambition  amongst 
the  leading  citizens  was  to  serve  it  in  a  military  capac- 
ity and  to  bring  about  the  subjugation  of  other  states 
and  peoples.  The  natural  and  unquestioned  ambition 
of  all  such  organisations  was  universal  conquest,  and 
during  that  long  period  in  the  world's  history  which 
intervened  between  the  year  675  B.C.,  when  Esar- 
haddon  king  of  Assyria,  by  the  conquest  of  Egypt, 
brought  the  whole  of  the  ancient  world  for  a  short 
space  under  his  rule,  and  the  final  break-up  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  this  ideal  of  state  policy  was  ever 
practically  before  men's  minds. 

With  the  enormous  significance  of  the  change  in 
the  base  from  which  this  struggle  takes  place  in  our 
Western  civilisation  we  are  not  now  closely  con- 
cerned ;  it  will  be  dealt  with  under  its  fuller  and 
wider  aspect  at  a  later  stage.  At  present  it  is  neces- 
sary to  keep  the  mind  fixed  on  a  single  feature  of 
man's  history,  namely,  the  stress  and  strain  under 
which  his  development  proceeds.  His  societies,  like 
the  individuals  comprising  them,  are  to  be  regarded 
as  the  product  of  the  circumstances  in  which  they 
exist,  —  the  survivals  of  the  fittest  in  the  rivalry  which 
is  constantly  in  progress.  Only  an  infinitesimal  num- 
ber of  them  have  become  known  to  us  even  in  name, 
and  these  have  come  to  occupy  a  disproportionate 
space  in  our  imagination,  because  of  the  little  corner 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS  47 

of  the  great  stage  of  the  world's  history  of  which 
alone  we  are  able,  even  with  the  aid  of  science,  to 
obtain  a  view. 

We  watch  universal  paralysis  and  slow  decay  fol- 
lowing universal  dominion ;  and  even  before  the 
downfall  of  the  Western  Empire  in  476  we  see  the 
greater  part  of  Europe  being  once  more  slowly  sub- 
merged under  successive  waves  of  more  vigorous 
humanity.  From  the  invasion  of  the  Roman  Empire 
by  the  Visigoths  in  376,  onwards  for  nearly  seven 
centuries,  the  tide  of  conquest  which  flowed  from  the 
East  and  North  surges  backwards  and  forwards  over 
Europe,  making  its  influence  felt  to  almost  the  ex- 
treme Western  and  Southern  limits,  and  leaving  at 
last,  when  it  subsides,  a  new  deposit  of  humanity 
overlying  the  peoples  the  invaders  found  in  posses- 
sion, who  had  in  prehistoric  times  similarly  superim- 
posed themselves  on  still  earlier  peoples. 

In  the  meantime,  in  the  World  wherein  the  founda- 
tions of  our  Western  civilisation  have  been  laid,  un- 
measured forces,  destined  to  play  a  great  part  in  the 
future,  have  begun  slowly  to  gather.  We  descend 
into  the  great  plain  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  history 
takes  its  course  through  this  extraordinary  period  — 
the  seed-time  of  the  modern  world.  The  conditions 
of  the  rivalry  slowly  change,  even  though  the  direc- 
tion of  the  movement  is  not  at  the  time  perceptible ; 
but  the  ideas  and  ideals  of  the  past  continue  to  retain 
their  influence  over  men's  minds.  The  ages  of  faith 
prove  to  be  the  ages  of  fighting  no  less  than  those 
which  preceded  them,  and  the  progress  of  the  world 
still  continues  amid  the  sound  of  battle  and  conflict. 
The  Western  powers  gradually  rise  into  prominence, 


48  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  vigorous  life  which  they  represent  making  itself 
felt  in  ever-widening  circles.  Out  of  the  more  local 
rivalries  the  great  struggle  for  the  possession  of  the 
New  World,  and  for  room  for  the  expanding  peoples 
to  develop,  begins  slowly  to  take  shape.  The  seven- 
teenth and  the  eighteenth  centuries  are  filled  with 
events  marking  the  progress  of  a  great  ethical  and 
political  revolution  destined,  as  we  shall  see,  to  affect 
in  the  most  marked  manner  the  future  development 
of  the  world.  But  these  events  in  no  way  stay  the 
course  of  the  rivalry  which  is  proceeding  ;  the  con- 
flict of  nations  continues,  and  the  eighteenth  century 
draws  to  a  close  leaving  still  undecided  that  stupen- 
dous duel  for  an  influential  place  in  the  future  in  which 
the  two  leading  peoples  of  Western  Europe,  facing 
each  other  in  nearly  every  part  of  the  world,  have 
closed. 

We  watch  the  Anglo-Saxon  overflowing  his  boun- 
daries, going  forth  to  take  possession  of  new  territories, 
and  establishing  himself  like  his  ancestors  in  many 
lands.  A  peculiar  interest  attaches  to  the  sight.  He 
has  been  deeply  affected,  more  deeply  than  many 
others,  by  the  altruistic  influences  of  the  ethical  sys- 
tem upon  which  our  Western  civilisation  is  founded. 
He  had  seen  races  like  the  ancient  Peruvians,  the 
Aztecs,  and  the  Caribs,  in  large  part  exterminated  by 
others,  ruthlessly  driven  out  of  existence  by  the  more 
vigorous  invader,  and  he  has  at  least  the  wish  to 
do  better.  In  the  North  American  Continent,  in 
the  plains  of  Australia,  in  New  Zealand,  and  South 
Africa,  the  representatives  of  this  vigorous  and  virile 
race  are  at  last  in  full  possession,  —  that  same  race 
which,  with  all  its  faults,  has  for  the  most  part  hon- 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  49 

estly  endeavoured  to  carry  humanitarian  principles  ,  ' 
into  its  dealings  with  inferior  peoples,  and  which  not 
improbably  deserves  the  tribute  paid  to  it  on  this 
account  by  Mr.  Lecky  who  counts  its  "unwearied,  un- 
ostentatious, and  inglorious  crusade  against  slavery  " 
amongst  "the  three  or  four  perfectly  virtuous  acts 
recorded  in  the  history  of  nations."  1 

Yet  neither  wish  nor  intention  has  power  appar- 
ently to  arrest  a  destiny  which  works  itself  out  irre- 
sistibly. The  Anglo-Saxon  has  exterminated  the  less 
developed  peoples  with  which  he  has  come  into  com- 
petition even  more  effectively  than  other  races  have 
done  in  like  case ;  not  necessarily  indeed  by  fierce 
and  cruel  wars  of  extermination,  but  through  the  oper- 
ation of  laws  not  less  deadly  and  even  more  certain 
in  their  result.  The  weaker  races  disappear  before 
the  stronger  through  the  effects  of  mere  contact. 
The  Australian  Aboriginal  retires  before  the  invader, 
his  tribes  dispersed,  his  hunting-grounds  taken  from 
him  to  be  utilised  for  other  purposes.  In  New  Zea- 
land a  similar  fate  is  overtaking  the  Maoris.  This 
people  were  estimated  to  number  in  1820,  100,000; 
in  1840  they  were  80,000;  they  are  now  estimated  at 
40,ooo.2  The  Anglo-Saxon,  driven  by  forces  inhe- 
rent in  his  own  civilisation,  comes  to  develop  the 
natural  resources  of  the  land,  and  the  consequences 
appear  to  be  inevitable.  The  same  history  is  repeat- 
ing itself  in  South  Africa.  •  In  the  words  used  re- 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  p.  160. 

2  Vide  Report  by  Registrar-General  of  New  Zealand  on  the  condi- 
tion of  that  country  in  1889,  quoted  in  Nature,  24th  October  1889. 
Vide  also  paper  by  F.  W.  Pennefather  in  Journal  of  Anthropological 
Institute,  1887. 


50  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

cently  by  a  leading  colonist  of  that  country,  "the 
natives  must  go  ;  or  they  must  work  as  laboriously  to 
develop  the  land  as  we  are  prepared  to  do  ;"  the  issue 
in  such  a  case  being  already  determined.  In  North 
America  we  have  but  a  later  stage  of  a  similar  his- 
tory. Here  two  centuries  of  conflict  have  left  the 
red  men  worsted  at  every  point,  rapidly  dwindling  in 
numbers,  the  surviving  tribes  hemmed  in  and  sur- 
rounded by  forces  which  they  have  no  power  to  re- 
sist, standing  like  the  isolated  patches  of  grass  which 
have  not  yet  fallen  before  the  knives  of  the  machine- 
mower  in  the  harvest  field. 

No  motives  appear  to  be  able  to  stay  the  progress 
of  such  movements,  humanise  them  how  we  may. 
We  often  in  a  self-accusing  spirit  attribute  the 
gradual  disappearance  of  aboriginal  peoples  to  the 
effects  of  our  vices  upon  them  ;  but  the  truth  is  that 
what  may  be  called  the  virtues  of  our  civilisation  are 
scarcely  less  fatal  than  its  vices.  Those  features  of 
Western  civilisation  which  are  most  distinctive  and 
characteristic,  and  of  which  we  are  most  proud,  are 
almost  as  disastrous  in  their  effects  as  the  evils  of 
which  complaint  is  so  often  made.  There  is  a  cer- 
tain grim  pathos  in  the  remark  of  the  author  of  a 
paper  on  the  New  Zealand  natives,  which  appeared  in 
the  Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute  a  few 
years  ago,1  who,  amongst  the  causes  to  which  the 
decay  of  the  natives  might  be  attributed,  mentioned, 
indiscriminately,  drink,  disease,  European  clothing, 
peace,  and  wealth.  In  whatever  part  of  the  world 
we  look,  amongst  civilised  or  uncivilised  peoples, 
history  seems  to  have  taken  the  same  course.     Of 

1  1887,  F.  W.  Pennefather. 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS  51 

the  Australian  natives  "  only  a  few  remanents  of  the 
powerful  tribes  linger  on.  .  .  .  All  the  Tasmanians 
are  gone,  and  the  Maoris  will  soon  be  following.  The 
Pacific  Islanders  are  departing  childless.  The  Aus- 
tralian natives  as  surely  are  descending  to  the  grave. 
Old  races  everywhere  give  place  to  the  new." 1  There 
are  probably,  says  Mr.  F.  Galton,  "  hardly  any  spots 
on  the  earth  that  have  not  within  the  last  few  thou- 
sand years  been  tenanted  by  very  different  races."  2 
Wherever  a  superior  race  comes  into  close  contact 
and  competition  with  an  inferior  race,  the  result 
seems  to  be  much  the  same,  whether  it  is  arrived  at 
by  the  rude  method  of  wars  of  conquest,  or  by  the 
silent  process  which  we  see  at  work  in  Australia,  New 
Zealand,  and  the  North  American  Continent,  or  by 
the  subtle,  though  no  less  efficient,  method  with 
which  science  makes  us  acquainted,  and  which  is  in 
operation  in  many  parts  of  our  civilisation,  where 
extinction  works  slowly  and  unnoticed  through  the 
earlier  marriages,  the  greater  vitality,  and  the  better 
chance  of  livelihood  of  the  members  of  the  superior 
race.3 

Yet  we  have  not  perhaps  in  all  this  the  most  strik- 
ing example  of  the  powerlessness  of  man  to  escape 
from  one  of  the  fundamental  conditions  under  which 
his  evolution  in  society  is  proceeding.  There  is 
scarcely  any  more  remarkable  situation  in  the  history 
of  our  Western  civilisation  than  that  which  has  been 
created  in  the  United  States  of  America  by  the 
emancipation  of  the  negro  as  the  result  of  the  War  of 

1  J.  Bonwick,  Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute,  1887. 

2  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty. 

3  Vide  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty,  by  F.  Galton, 


52  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

Secession.  The  meaning  of  this  extraordinary  chap- 
ter in  our  social  history  has  as  yet  scarcely  been 
grasped.  As  the  result  primarily  of  an  ethical  move- 
ment having  its  roots  far  back  in  the  past,  the  United 
States  abolished  slavery  with  the  conclusion  of  the 
Civil  War  in  1865.  The  negro  was  raised  to  a  posi- 
tion of  equality  with  his  late  masters  in  the  sight  of 
the  law,  and  admitted  to  full  political  rights.  Accord- 
ing to  the  census  of  1890  the  negroes  and  persons 
of  African  descent  in  the  United  States  numbered 
7,470,040,  principally  distributed  in  some  fifteen  of 
the  Southern  States  known  as  the  "  Black  Belt." 
In  some  of  these  states  the  black  population  out- 
numbers the  white. 

Any  one  who  thinks  that  the  emancipation  of  the 
negro  has  stayed  or  altered  the  inexorable  law  which 
we  find  working  itself  out  through  human  history 
elsewhere,  has  only  to  look  to  the  remarkable  litera- 
ture which  this  question  is  producing  in  the  United 
States  at  the  present  day,  and  judge  for  himself. 
The  negro  has  been  emancipated  and  admitted  to 
full  voting  citizenship ;  he  has  grown  wealthy,  and 
has  raised  himself  by  education.  But  to  his  fellow- 
men  of  a  different  colour  he  remains  the  inferior  still. 
His  position  in  the  United  States  to-day  is  one  of 
absolute  subordination,  under  all  the  forms  of  free- 
dom, to  the  race  amongst  whom  he  lives.  To  inter- 
marry with  him  the  white  absolutely  refuses  ;  he  will 
not  admit  him  to  social  equality  on  any  terms ;  he 
will  not  even  allow  him  to  exercise  the  political  power 
which  is  his  right  in  theory  where  he  possesses  a 
voting  majority.  Mr.  Laird  Clowes,  whose  careful 
and  detailed  investigation  of  this  remarkable  question 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS  53 

has  recently  attracted  attention  in  England,  says  that 
the  impartial  observer  might  expect  to  find  in  some 
of  the  coloured  states  of  the  Union  the  government 
almost,  if  not  entirely,  in  the  hands  of  the  negro  and 
coloured  majority ;  but  he  finds  no  trace  of  anything 
of  the  kind.  "  He  finds,  on  the  contrary,  that  the 
white  man  rules  as  supremely  as  he  did  in  the  days 
of  slavery.  The  black  man  is  permitted  to  have 
little  or  nothing  to  say  upon  the  point ;  he  is  simply 
thrust  on  one  side.  At  every  political  crisis  the  cry 
of  the  minority  is,  'This  is  a  white  man's  question,' 
and  the  cry  is  generally  uttered  in  such  a  tone  as  to 
effectually  warn  off  the  black  man  from  meddling 
with  the  matter."  2  In  the  midst  of  democratic  civil- 
isation, and  under  its  forms  and  cover,  the  war  of 
races  is  waged  as  effectively  and  with  practically  the 
same  results  as  in  any  other  state  of  society.  Says 
Mr.  Clowes :  "  Throughout  the  South  the  social 
position  of  the  man  in  whose  veins  negro  blood 
courses  is  unalterably  fixed  at  birth.  The  child  may 
grow  to  be  wise,  to  be  wealthy,  to  be  entrusted  even 
with  the  responsibilities  of  office,  but  he  always  bears 
with  him  the  visible  marks  of  his  origin,  and  those 
marks  condemn  him  to  remain  for  ever  at  the  bottom 
of  the  social  ladder.  To  incur  this  condemnation  he 
need  not  be  by  any  means  black.  A  quarter,  an 
eighth,  nay,  a  sixteenth  of  African  blood  is  sufficient 
to  deprive  him  of  all  chances  of  social  equality  with 
the  white  man.  For  the  being  with  the  hated  taint 
there  is  positively  no  social  mercy.  A  white  man 
may  be  ignorant,  vicious,  and  poor.  For  him,  in 
spite  of  all,   the  door  is  ever  kept  open.     But   the 

1  Black  America  (i 891),  by  W.  Laird  Clowes,  p.  8, 


54  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

black,  or  coloured  man,  no  matter  what  his  personal 
merits  may  be,  is  ruthlessly  shut  out.  The  white 
absolutely  declines  to  associate  with  him  on  equal 
terms.  A  line  has  been  drawn ;  and  he  who,  from 
either  side,  crosses  that  line  has  to  pay  the  penalty. 
If  it  be  the  negro  who  dares  to  cross,  cruelty  and 
violence  chase  him  promptly  back  again,  or  kill  him 
for  his  temerity.  If  it  be  the  white,  ostracism  is  the 
recognised  penalty.  And  it  is  not  only  the  unedu- 
cated and  easily  prejudiced  who  have  drawn  the  line 
thus  sharply."  *  Many  thoughtful  and  earnest  per- 
sons are  so  impressed  with  the  gravity  of  the  prob- 
lem, that  they  recommend  and  seriously  advocate  the 
deportation  of  the  seven  millions  of  the  coloured  race 
back  to  their  original  home  in  Africa  as  the  only 
effective  solution.  The  whites  find  it  simply  intol- 
erable and  impossible  to  live  under  the  rule  of  the 
blacks,  and  they  are  determined,  come  what  may,  to 
prevent  that  rule.  The  present  state  of  things  is 
not  maintained  simply  by  the  ignorant  whites.  The 
intelligent,  the  educated,  and  the  respected  give  it 
their  countenance  and  support.  Power  is  maintained 
by  the  whites  when  they  are  in  the  minority  by 
fraud,  violence,  and  intimidation  in  default  of  other 
means ;  yet,  says  Mr.  Clowes,  "  strange  to  say,  even 
the  most  respected  and  (in  ordinary  dealings)  upright 
white  people  of  the  South  excuse  and  defend  this 
course  of  procedure,  and,  stranger  still,  very  many 
honourable  citizens  of  the  North,  Republicans  as  well 
as  Democrats,  do  not  hesitate  to  declare,  'If  I  were  a 
Southern  white  man  I  should  act  as  the  Southern 
white  men  do.'    The  cardinal  principle  of  the  political 

1  Black  America  (1891),  by  W.  Laird  Clowes,  p.  87. 


n  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN   PROGRESS  55 

creed  of  99  per  cent  of  the  Southern  whites  is  that 
the  white  man  must  rule  at  all  costs  and  at  all 
hazards.  In  comparison  with  this  principle  every 
other  article  of  political  faith  dwindles  into  ridicu- 
lous insignificance.  White  domination  dwarfs  tariff 
reform,  protection,  free  trade,  and  the  very  pales  of 
party.  The  white  who  does  not  believe  in  it  above 
all  else  is  regarded  as  a  traitor  and  as  an  outcast. 
The  race  question  is,  in  the  South,  the  sole  question 
of  burning  interest.  If  you  are  sound  on  that  ques- 
tion you  are  one  of  the  elect ;  if  you  are  unsound, 
you  take  rank  as  a  pariah  or  as  a  lunatic."  * 

All  this,  the  conflict  of  races  before  referred  to, 
the  worsting  of  the  weaker,  none  the  less  effective 
even  when  it  is  silent  and  painless,  the  subordination 
or  else  the  slow  extinction  of  the  inferior,  is  not  a 
page  from  the  past  or  the  distant ;  it  is  all  taking 
place  to-day  beneath  our  eyes  in  different  parts  of 
the  world,  and  more  particularly  and  characteristically 
within  the  pale  of  that  vigorous  Anglo-Saxon  cilvilisa- 
tion  of  which  we  are  so  proud,  and  which  to  many  of 
us  is  associated  with  all  the  most  worthy  ideals  of 

1  Black  America  (1891),  by  W.  Laird  Clowes,  p.  15. 

It  would  appear  from  the  last  census  of  the  United  States  that, 
despite  recent  opinions  to  the  contrary,  the  coloured  population  is  not 
holding  its  own  against  the  white  races  even  in  numbers  in  the  states 
best  suited  to  its  development.  In  the  region  known  as  the  Black 
Belt  there  were,  in  1890,  6,996,166  coloured  inhabitants,  and  in  1880, 
6,142,360.  The  coloured  element  increased  during  the  decade  at  the 
rate  of  13-90  per  cent.  The  white  population  of  these  states  in 
1890  numbered  16,868,205,  and  in  1880,  13,530,408.  They  increased 
during  the  decade  at  the  rate  of  24-67  per  cent,  or  nearly  twice  as 
rapidly  as  the  coloured  element.  The  interesting  report  on  the  sub- 
ject by  the  Superintendent  of  Census  will  be  found  printed  at  full  in 
the  Appendix. 


56  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

liberty,  religion,  and  government  that  the  race  has 
evolved. 

But  it  is  not  until  we  come  to  draw  aside  the  veil 
from  our  civilisation,  and  watch  what  is  taking  place 
within  our  borders  between  the  individuals  and  classes 
comprising  it,  that  we  begin  to  realise,  with  some 
degree  of  clearness,  the  nature  of  this  rivalry  which 
-^Compels  us  to  make  progress  whether  we  will  or  not, 
its  tendency  to  develop  in  intensity  rather  than  to 
disappear,  and  our  own  powerlessness  either  to  stay 
its  course  or  to  escape  its  influence.  We  had,  in  the 
conception  of  the  ancient  state,  as  a  condition  of  soci- 
ety in  which  the  struggle  for  existence  was  waged, 
mainly  between  organised  groups  rather  than  between 
the  individuals  comprising  them,  the  key  to  history 
before  the  modern  period.  In  the  later  type  of 
civilisation,  the  conditions  of  the  rivalry  have  greatly 
changed ;  but  if  we  look  closely  at  what  is  taking 
place,  we  may  see  that  there  has  been  no  cessation 
or  diminution  of  the  rivalry  itself.  On  the  contrary, 
the  significance  of  the  change  has  consisted  in  the 
tendency  to  raise  it  to  a  higher  level,  to  greatly  en- 
large its  scope  and  its  efficiency  as  a  cause  of  progress, 
by  bringing  all  the  members  of  the  community  into 
it  on  more  equal  terms,  and  to  render  it  freer  and 
fairer,  but,  therefore,  still  more  strenuous. 

The  movement  of  progressive  societies,  remarks 
Sir  Henry  Maine,  has  been  uniform  in  one  respect ; 
throughout  its  course  we  have  everywhere  to  trace 
the  growth  of  individual  obligation,  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  the  individual  for  the  group  as  the  unit  of 
which  the   civil   laws   take   account.1     In   this  pro- 

1  Ancient  Law,  p.  168. 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  57 

foundly  significant  transition  which  has  taken  place 
in  our  legal  codes,  we  have  the  outward  expression  of 
the  great  process  of  development  which  has  worked 
itself  out  through  our  Western  civilisation. 

We  have  only  to  look  round  us  in  the  world  in 
which  we  live  to  see  that  this  rivalry  which  man 
maintains  with  his  fellows  has  become  the  leading 
and  dominant  feature  of  our  civilisation.  It  makes 
itself  felt  now  throughout  the  whole  fabric  of  society. 
If  we  examine  the  motives  of  our  daily  life,  and  of 
the  lives  of  those  with  whom  we  come  in  contact,  we 
shall  have  to  recognise  that  the  first  and  principal 
thought  in  the  minds  of  the  vast  majority  of  us  is  how 
to  hold  our  own  therein.  The  influence  of  the  rivalry 
extends  even  to  the  innermost  recesses  of  our  private 
lives.  In  our  families,  our  homes,  our  pleasures,  in 
the  supreme  moments  of  our  lives,  how  to  obtain  suc- 
cess or  to  avoid  failure  for  ourselves,  or  for  those 
nearest  to  us,  is  a  question  of  the  first  importance. 
Nearly  all  the  best  ability  which  society  produces 
finds  employment  in  this  manner.  It  is  no  noisy 
struggle  ;  it  is  the  silent  determined  striving  of  vigor- 
ous men  in  earnest,  who  are  trying  their  powers  to 
the  utmost.  It  leaves  its  mark  everywhere  in  the 
world  around  us.  Some  of  the  most  striking  litera- 
ture modern  civilisation  has  produced  has  taken  the 
form  of  realistic  pictures  of  phases  of  the  struggle 
which  are  always  with  us. 

In  our  modern  industrial  societies  nearly  all  classes 
are  involved.  The  springs  of  action  lie  very  deep. 
The  love  of  action,  the  insatiable  desire  for  strenuous 
energetic  labour  is  everywhere  characteristic  of  the 
peoples  who  have  come  to  occupy  the  foremost  places 


58  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

in  the  world.  Amongst  the  many  failings  which 
have  been  attributed  to  the  English  character,  by  a 
class  of  foreign  writers  who  have  not  clearly  under- 
stood the  causes  contributing  to  the  extraordinary 
expansion  which  the  English-speaking  peoples  have 
undergone  in  modern  times,  has  been  the  supposed 
national  love  for  huckstering  and  trafficking  in  all 
its  forms.  But,  as  Professor  Marshall  has  recently 
correctly  pointed  out,  the  English  "had  not  origi- 
nally, and  they  have  not  now,  that  special  liking  for 
dealing  and  bargaining,  nor  for  the  more  abstract 
side  of  financial  business,  which  is  found  amongst  the 
Jews,  the  Italians,  the  Greeks,  and  the  Armenians ; 
trade  with  them  has  always  taken  the  form  of  action 
rather  than  of  manoeuvring  and  speculative  combina- 
tion. Even  now  the  subtlest  financial  speculation  on 
the  London  Stock  Exchange  is  done  chiefly  by  those 
races  which  have  inherited  the  same  aptitude  for 
trading  which  the  English  have  for  action."1  Our 
vital  statistics  show  that  the  severest  stress,  the 
hardest  work,  and  the  shortest  lives  are  not  so  much 
the  lot  of  the  poor  as  of  the  business  and  professional 
classes.  The  appetite  for  success  is  really  never 
satisfied,  and  a  deeper  insight  into  the  conditions  of 
the  rivalry  reveals  that  it  is  necessarily  so ;  it  grows 
with  eating,  but  it  remains  insatiable. 

We  shall  perceive,  when  we  understand  the  nature 
of  the  forces  at  work  beneath  the  social  phenomena 
of  our  time,  that  in  whatever  direction  we  may  cast 
our  eyes,  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  rivalry  and 
competition  of  life,  which  has  projected  itself  into 
human  society,  has  tended  to  disappear  in  the  past, 

1  Principles  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  pp.  32,  33. 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN   PROGRESS  59 

or  that  it  is  less  severe  amongst  the  most  advanced 
peoples  of  the  present,  or  that  the  tendency  of  the 
progress  we  are  making  is  to  extinguish  it  in  the 
future.  On  the  contrary,  all  the  evidence  points  in 
the  opposite  direction.  The  enormous  expansion  of 
the  past  century  has  been  accompanied  by  two  well- 
marked  features  in  all  lands  affected  by  it.  The 
advance  towards  more  equal  conditions  of  life  has 
been  so  great,  that  amongst  the  more  progressive 
nations  such  terms  as  lower  orders,  common  people, 
and  working  classes  are  losing  much  of  their  old 
meaning,  the  masses  of  the  people  are  being  slowly 
raised,  and  the  barriers  of  birth,  class,  and  privilege 
are  everywhere  being  broken  through.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  pulses  of  life  have  not  slackened 
amongst  us  ;  the  rivalry  is  keener,  the  stress  severer, 
the  pace  quicker  than  ever  before. 

Looking  round  at  the  nations  of  to-day  and  noticing 
the  direction  in  which  they  are  travelling,  it  seems 
impossible  to  escape  the  conclusion  that  the  progres- 
sive peoples  have  everywhere  the  same  distinctive 
features.  Energetic,  vigorous,  virile  life  amongst 
them  is  maintained  at  the  highest  pitch  of  which 
nature  is  capable.  They  offer  the  highest  motives 
to  emulation ;  amongst  them  the  individual  is  freest, 
the  selection  fullest,  the  rivalry  fairest.  But  so  also 
is  the  conflict  sternest,  the  nervous  friction  greatest, 
and  the  stress  severest.  Looking  back  by  the  way 
these  nations  have  come,  we  find  an  equally  unmis- 
takable absence  of  these  qualities  and  conditions 
amongst  the  competitors  they  have  left  behind. 
From  the  nations  who  have  dropped  out  of  the  race 
within  recent  times  backwards  through  history,  we 


60  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

follow  a  gradually  descending  series.  The  contrast 
already  to  be  distinguished  between  the  advancing 
and  the  unprogressive  peoples  of  European  race  is 
more  noticeable  when  the  former  are  compared  with 
non-European  peoples.  The  difference  becomes  still 
more  marked  when  the  existence  of  the  careless,  shift- 
less, easily  satisfied  negro  of  the  United  States  or 
West  Indies  is  contrasted  with  that  of  the  dominant 
race  amongst  whom  he  lives,  whose  restless,  aggres- 
sive, high-pitched  life  he  has  neither  the  desire  to 
live  nor  the  capacity  to  endure. 

We  follow  the  path  of  Empire  from  the  stagnant 
and  unchanging  East,  westward  through  peoples 
whose  pulses  beat  quicker,  and  whose  energy  and 
activity  become  more  marked  as  we  advance.  Pro- 
fessor Marshall,  who  notices  the  prevailing  energy 
and  activity  of  the  British  people,  and  who  has  re- 
cently roundly  asserted  that  men  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
races  in  all  parts  of  the  world  not  only  work  hard 
while  about  it,  but  do  more  work  in  the  year  than  any 
other,1  only  brings  into  prominence  the  one  dominant 
feature  of  all  successful  peoples.  It  is  the  same 
characteristic  which  distinguishes  the  people  of  the 
great  Anglo-Saxon  republic  of  the  West  whose  writers 
continually  remind  us  that  the  peculiar  endowment 
which  its  people  have  received  from  nature  is  an 
additional  allowance  of  nervous  energy. 

A  similar  lesson  is  emphasised  in  the  northward 
movement  of  rule  and  empire  throughout  historic 
times.  The  successful  peoples  have  moved  west- 
wards for  physical  reasons  ;  the  seat  of  power  has 
moved  continually  northwards  for  reasons  connected 

1  Principles  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  p.  730. 


II  CONDITIONS  OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS  61 

with  the  evolution  in  character  which  the  race  is 
undergoing.  Man,  originally  a  creature  of  a  warm 
climate  and  still  multiplying  most  easily  and  rapidly 
there,  has  not  attained  his  highest  development 
where  the  conditions  of  existence  have  been  easiest. 
Throughout  history  the  centre  of  power  has  moved 
gradually  but  surely  to  the  north  into  those  stern 
regions  where  men  have  been  trained  for  the  rivalry 
of  life  in  the  strenuous  conflict  with  nature  in  which 
they  have  acquired  energy,  courage,  integrity,  and 
those  characteristic  qualities  which  contribute  to 
raise  them  to  a  high  state  of  social  efficiency.  The 
shifting  of  the  centre  of  power  northwards  has  been 
a  feature  alike  of  modern  and  of  ancient  history. 
The  peoples  whose  influence  to-day  reaches  over  the 
greater  part  of  the  world,  both  temperate  and  tropi- 
cal, belong  almost  exclusively  to  races  whose  geo- 
graphical home  is  north  of  the  40th  parallel  of  latitude. 
The  two  groups  of  peoples,  the  English-speaking 
races  and  the  Russians  whose  rule  actually  extends 
over  some  46  per  cent  of  the  entire  surface  of  the 
earth  have  their  geographical  home  north  of  the  50th 
parallel. 

Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  from  these 
strenuous  conditions  of  rivalry  the  race  as  a  whole 
is  powerless  to  escape.  The  conditions  of  progress 
may  be  interrupted  amongst  the  peoples  who  have 
long  held  their  place  in  the  front.  These  peoples 
may  fail  and  fall  behind,  but  progress  continues 
nevertheless.  For  although  the  growth  of  the  leading 
shoot  may  be  for  the  time  arrested,  farther  back  on 
the  branch  other  shoots  are  always  ready  to  take 
the  place  of  that  which  has  ceased  to  advance.     The 


62  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap,  n 

races  who  maintain  their  places  in  the  van  do  so  on 
the  sternest  conditions.  We  may  regulate  and  hu- 
manise those  conditions,  but  we  have  no  power  to 
alter  them ;  the  conflict  is  severest  of  all  when  it  is 
carried  on  under  the  forms  of  the  highest  civilisation. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  looks  forward,  not  without  reason, 
to  the  day  when  wars  will  cease ;  but  without  war, 
he  is  involuntarily  exterminating  the  Maori,  the  Aus- 
tralian, and  the  Red  Indian,  and  he  has  within  his 
borders  the  emancipated  but  ostracised  Negro,  the 
English  Poor  Law,  and  the  Social  Question ;  he  may 
beat  his  swords  into  ploughshares,  but  in  his  hands 
the  implements  of  industry  prove  even  more  effective 
and  deadly  weapons  than  the  swords. 

These  are  the  first  stern  facts  of  human  life  and 
progress  which  we  have  to  take  into  account.  They 
have  their  origin  not  in  any  accidental  feature  of 
our  history,  nor  in  any  innate  depravity  existing  in 
man.  They  result,  as  we  have  seen,  from  deep-seated 
physiological  causes,  the  operation  of  which  we  must 
always  remain  powerless  to  escape.  It  is  worse  than 
useless  to  obscure  them  or  to  ignore  them,  as  is  done 
in  a  great  part  of  the  social  literature  of  the  time. 
The  first  step  towards  obtaining  any  true  grasp  of 
the  social  problems  of  our  day  must  be  to  look  fairly 
and  bravely  in  the  face  these  facts  which  lie  behind 
them. 


CHAPTER   III 

THERE    IS    NO    RATIONAL    SANCTION    FOR    THE    CONDI- 
TIONS  OF   PROGRESS 

Having  endeavoured  to  place  thus  prominently 
before  our  minds  the  conditions  under  which  human 
progress  has  been  made  throughout  the  past,  and 
under  which  it,  so  far,  continues  to  be  made  in  the 
midst  of  the  highest  civilisation  which  surrounds  us 
at  the  present,  we  must  now  direct  our  attention  to 
another  striking  and  equally  important  feature  of 
this  progress.  The  two  new  forces  which  made 
their  advent  with  man  were  his  reason,  and  the 
capacity  for  acting,  under  its  influence,  in  concert 
with  his  fellows  in  society.  It  becomes  necessary, 
therefore,  to  notice  for  the  first  time  a  fact  which, 
later,  as  we  proceed,  will  be  brought  into  increasing 
prominence.  As  man  can  only  reach  his  highest 
development  and  employ  his  powers  to  the  fullest 
extent  in  society,  it  follows  that  in  the  evolution 
we  witness  him  undergoing  throughout  history,  his 
development  as  an  individual  is  necessarily  of  less 
importance  than  his  development  as  a  social  creature. 
In  other  words,  although  his  interests  as  an  indi- 
vidual may  remain  all-important  to  himself,  it  has 
become  inevitable  that  they  must  henceforward  be 
subordinated  —  whether  he  be  conscious  of  it  or  not 
—  to  those   larger   social   interests   with   which   the 

63 


64  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

forces  that  are  shaping  his  development  have  now- 
begun  to  operate. 

The  evolutionist  who  endeavours  to  obtain  a  funda- 
mental grasp  of  the  problems  which  human  society 
presents,  will  find,  therefore,  that  there  is  one  point, 
above  all  others,  at  which  his  attention  tends  to  be- 
come concentrated  —  the  point  where  he  stands,  as  it 
were,  between  man  as  a  member  of  society  endowed 
with  reason  on  the  one  side,  and  all  the  brute  crea- 
tion that  has  gone  before  him  on  the  other.  The 
problem  which  presents  itself  here  is  of  unusual 
interest. 

Looking  back  to  the  beginning  of  life,  we  observe 
that  the  progress  made  up  to  this  point  has  been 
very  great,  so  great  indeed,  that  it  is  almost  beyond 
the  power  of  the  imagination  to  grasp  its  full  mean- 
ing and  extent.  We  see  at  one  end  of  the  scale  the 
lowest  forms  of  life,  simple,  unicellular,  almost  struct- 
ureless and  without  sense  of  any  kind,  and  at  the 
other,  we  have  in  the  highest  forms  below  man,  a 
complexity  of  structure  and  co-ordination  of  func- 
tion, which,  to  the  ordinary  mind,  appears  marvel- 
lous in  the  extreme.  The  advance  so  far  has  been 
vast  and  imposing ;  but  looking  at  the  results,  it  is 
now  necessary  to  call  particularly  to  mind  the  teach- 
ing of  evolutionary  science  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
these  results  have  been  obtained. 

Our  admiration  is  excited  by  the  wonderful  attri- 
butes of  life  amongst  the  higher  animals,  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  teaching  of  science  is,  that 
natural  selection  produced  these  results  only  by  weed- 
ing out,  during  an  immense  series  of  generations,  the 
unsuitable  forms,  and  by  the  gradual  development  of 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  65 

the  successful  types  through  the  slow  accumulation 
of  useful  variations  in  the  others.  The  conditions 
of  progress  must,  therefore,  from  the  very  beginning, 
have  involved  failure  to  reach  the  ordinary  possibili- 
ties of  life  for  large  numbers.  We  admire  the  won- 
derful adaptation  of  many  of  the  ruminants  to  their 
mode  of  life,  the  keen  scent  by  which  they  distin- 
guish an  enemy  at  a  distance  which  seems  remarkable 
to  us,  their  wonderful  power  of  vision,  their  exceed- 
ing fleetness  of  foot,  and  their  graceful  and  beautiful 
forms.  But  the  evolutionist  has  always  before  him 
the  cost  at  which  these  qualities  have  been  obtained. 
He  has  in  mind  the  countless  host  of  individuals  which 
have  fallen  a  prey  to  their  enemies,  or  failed  in  other 
ways  in  the  rivalry  of  life  in  the  immense  period 
during  which  natural  selection  was  at  work,  slowly 
accumulating  the  small  successful  variations,  out  of 
which  these  qualities  have  been  evolved.  It  is  the 
same  with  other  forms  of  life ;  progress  everywhere 
is  evident,  but  the  way  is  strewn  with  the  unsuccess- 
ful which  have  fallen  in  the  advance.  The  first 
condition  of  this  progress  has  been,  that  all  the  indi- 
viduals cannot  succeed ;  for,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
no  form  can  make  any  advance,  or  even  retain  its 
place,  without  deterioration,  except  by  carrying  on 
the  species  to  a  greater  extent  from  individuals  above 
the  average  than  from  those  below  it,  and  conse- 
quently by  multiplying  beyond  the  limits  which  the 
conditions  of  existence  comfortably  allow  for. 

There  is,  therefore,  one  feature  of  the  situation 
which  cannot  be  gainsaid.  If  it  had  been  possible 
at  any  time,  for  all  the  individuals  of  any  form  of  life 
to  have  secured  themselves  against  the  competition 


66  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

of  other  forms,  it  would,  beyond  doubt,  have  been 
their  interest  to  have  suspended  amongst  themselves 
those  onerous  conditions  which  thus  prevented  large 
numbers  of  their  kind  from  reaching  the  fullest  pos- 
sibilities of  life.  The  conditions  of  progress,  it  is 
true,  might  have  been  suspended,  but  this  could  not 
have  given  them  the  slightest  concern.  The  results 
would  only  have  been  visible  after  a  prolonged  period, 
and  they  could  not  be  expected  to  have  appeared 
to  existing  individuals  as  of  any  importance  when 
weighed  against  their  own  interests  in  the  present. 

But  now  at  last,  science  stands  confronted  with  a 
creature  differing  in  one  most  important  respect  from 
all  that  have  gone  before  him.  He  is  endowed  with 
reason ;  a  faculty  which  is  eventually  destined  to  gain 
for  him,  inter  alia,  the  mastery  of  the  whole  earth, 
and  to  place  an  impossible  barrier  between  him  and 
all  the  other  forms  of  life.  As  we  regard  the  prob- 
lem which  here  begins  to  unfold  itself,  it  is  seen  to 
possess  features  of  unusual  interest.  It  would  seem 
that  a  conclusion,  strange  and  unexpected,  but  appar- 
ently unavoidable,  must  present  itself.  If  the  theo- 
ries of  evolutionary  science  have  been,  so  far,  correct, 
then  this  new  factor  which  has  been  born  into  the 
world  must,  it  would  appear,  have  the  effect  of  ulti- 
mately staying  all  further  progress.  Naturally  recoil- 
ing from  so  extraordinary  a  conclusion,  we  return  and 
examine  again  the  steps  by  which  it  has  been  reached, 
but  there  seems,  at  first  sight,  to  be  no  flaw  in  the 
process  of  reasoning. 

The  facts  present  themselves  in  this  wise.  Through- 
out the  whole  period  of  development  hitherto  the  con- 
ditions of  progress  have  necessarily  been  incompatible 


in  NO   RATIONAL  SANCTION   FOR   PROGRESS  67 

with  the  welfare  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  individ- 
uals comprising  any  species.  Yet  it  is  evident  that 
to  these,  if  they  had  been  able  to  think  and  to  have 
any  voice  in  the  matter,  their  own  welfare  must  have 
appeared  immeasurably  more  important  than  the  fut- 
ure of  the  species,  or  than  any  progress,  however 
great,  that  their  kind  might  make  which  thus  de- 
manded that  they  should  be  sacrificed  to  it.  If  it  had 
been  possible  for  them  to  have  reasoned  about  the 
matter,  it  must,  beyond  doubt,  have  appeared  to  them 
that  their  interests  lay  in  putting  an  immediate  stop 
to  those  onerous  conditions  from  which  progress 
resulted,  and  which  pressed  so  severely  upon  them. 
The  advance  which  the  species  might  be  making  was, 
indeed,  nothing  whatever  to  them;  their  own  imme- 
diate condition  was  everything.  A  future  in  which 
they  could  have  no  possible  interest,  must  undoubtedly 
have  been  left  to  take  care  of  itself,  even  though  it 
might  involve  the  suspension  of  the  conditions  of 
progress,  the  future  deterioration  of  their  kind,  and 
the  eventual  extinction  of  the  whole  species. 

Yet  here  at  last  was  a  creature  who  could  reason 
about  these  things  and  who,  when  his  conduct  is  ob- 
served, it  may  be  noticed,  actually  does  reason  about 
them  in  this  way.  He  is  subject  to  the  same  natural 
conditions  of  existence  as  all  the  forms  of  life  that 
have  come  before  him  ;  he  reproduces  his  kind  as 
they  do ;  he  lives  and  dies  subject  to  the  same  physi- 
ological laws.  To  him,  as  to  the  others,  the  inexo- 
rable conditions  of  life  render  progress  impossible  in 
any  other  way  than  by  carrying  on  his  kind  from  suc- 
cessful variations  to  the  exclusion  of  others ;  by  being, 
therefore,  subject  to  selection ;  by  consequently  re- 


68  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

producing  in  numbers  beyond  those  which  the  condi- 
tions of  life  for  the  time  being  comfortably  allow  for ; 
and  by  living  a  life  of  constant  rivalry  and  competi- 
tion with  his  fellows  with  all  the  attendant  results  of 
stress  and  suffering  to  some,  and  failure  to  reach  the 
full  possibilities  of  life  to  large  numbers.  Nay,  more, 
it  is  evident  that  his  progress  has  become  subject  to 
these  conditions  in  a  more  stringent  and  onerous 
form  than  has  ever  before  prevailed  in  the  world. 
For  as  he  can  reach  his  highest  development  only  in 
society,  the  forces  which  are  concerned  in  working 
out  his  evolution  no  longer  operate  upon  him  pri- 
marily as  an  individual  but  as  a  member  of  society. 
His  interests  as  an  individual  have,  in  fact,  become 
further  subordinated  to  those  of  a  social  organism, 
with  interests  immensely  wider,  and  a  life  indefinitely 
longer  than  his  own.  How  is  the  possession  of  rea- 
son ever  to  be  rendered  compatible  with  the  will  to 
submit  to  conditions  of  existence  so  onerous,  requir- 
ing the  effective  and  continual  subordination  of  the 
individual's  welfare  to  the  progress  of  a  development 
in  which  he  can  have  no  personal  interest  what- 
ever ? 

The  evolutionist  looks  with  great  interest  for  the 
answer  which  is  to  be  given  to  a  question  of  such 
unusual  importance.  The  new  era  opens,  and  he 
sees  man  following  his  upward  path  apparently  on 
exactly  the  same  conditions  as  have  prevailed  in  the 
past.  Progress  has  not  been  suspended,  nor  have  the 
conditions  which  produced  it  been  in  any  way  altered. 
Man  gathers  himself  into  primitive  societies ;  for,  his 
reason  producing  its  highest  results  when  he  acts  in 
co-operation  with  his  fellows,  he  of  necessity  becomes 


in  NO  RATIONAL   SANCTION   FOR   PROGRESS  69 

social  in  his  habits  through  the  greater  efficiency  of 
his  social  groups  in  the  rivalry  of  existence.  His 
societies  in  like  manner  continue  in  a  state  of  rivalry 
with  each  other,  the  less  efficient  gradually  disappear- 
ing before  the  more  vigorous  types.  The  strife  is 
incessant;  the  military  type  becomes  established,  and 
attains  at  length  a  great  development.  All  the  old 
conditions  appear  to  have  survived  into  the  new  era. 
The  resources  of  the  individual  are  drawn  upon  to 
the  fullest  extent  to  keep  the  rivalry  at  the  highest 
pitch;  the  winning  societies  gradually  extinguish 
their  competitors,  the  weaker  peoples  disappear  be- 
fore the  stronger,  and  the  subordination  and  exclu- 
sion of  the  least  efficient  is  still  the  prevailing  feature 
of  advancing  humanity.  Slowly,  too,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  rivalry  within  those  societies  becomes  two-sided. 
Other  things  being  equal,  the  most  vigorous  social 
systems  are  those  in  which  are  combined  the  most 
effective  subordination  of  the  individual  to  the  inter- 
ests of  the  social  organism  with  the  highest  develop- 
ment of  his  own  personality.  A  marked  feature, 
therefore,  of  all  the  most  advanced  and  progressive 
societies  is  the  high  pitch  at  which  the  rivalry  of  life 
is  maintained  within  the  community,  the  freedom  of 
the  conditions  of  this  rivalry,  and  the  display  of 
energy  and  the  constant  stress  and  strain  which 
accompany  it.  Look  where  he  will,  the  evolutionist 
finds  no  cessation  of  the  strenuous  conditions  which 
have  prevailed  from  the  beginning  of  life ;  the  ten- 
dency, on  the  contrary,  seems  to  be  to  render  them 
more  severe.  Progress  continues  to  be  everywhere 
marked  with  the  same  inevitable  consequences  of 
failure  and  exclusion  from  the   highest   possibilities 


70  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION 


CHAP. 


of  life,  for  a  large  proportion  of  the  individuals  con- 
cerned. 

The  possession  of  reason  must,  it  would  seem,  in- 
volve the  opportunity  of  escape  from  the  conditions 
mentioned.  The  evidence  would,  however,  appear 
to  point  indubitably  to  the  conclusion  that  these  con- 
ditions can  have  had  no  sanction  from  reason  for  the 
mass  of  the  individuals  subjected  to  them.  It  may 
be  held  that  they  are  conditions  essential  to  progress, 
and  that  the  future  interests  of  the  society  to  which 
we  belong,  and  even  of  the  race,  would  inevitably 
suffer  if  they  were  suspended.  But  this  is  not  an 
argument  to  weigh  with  the  individual  who  is  con- 
cerned with  his  own  interests  in  the  present  and  not 
with  the  possible  interests  in  the  future  of  society  or 
the  race.  It  seems  impossible  to  conceive  how  the 
conditions  of  progress  could  have  had  any  rational 
sanction  for  the  host  of  exterminated  peoples  of 
whom  a  vision  rises  before  us  when  we  compare  the 
average  European  brain  of  to-day  with  that  of  the 
lowest  savages,  and  consider  the  steps  by  which  alone 
the  advance  can  have  been  made.  The  conditions  of 
progress  may  be  viewed  complacently  by  science,  but 
it  can  hardly  be  said  that  they  can  have  any  rational 
sanction  for  the  Red  Indian  in  process  of  extermina- 
tion in  the  United  States,  for  the  degraded  negro  in 
the  same  country,  for  the  Maori  in  New  Zealand,  or 
for  the  Aboriginal  in  Australia. 

The  same  conclusion  is  not  less  certain,  although 
it  may  be  less  obvious  elsewhere.  The  conditions  of 
existence  cannot  really  have  had  any  rational  sanc- 
tion for  the  great  mass  of  the  people  during  that  pro- 
longed period  when  societies  were  developed  under 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION   FOR   PROGRESS  71 

stress  of  circumstances  on  a  military  footing.  An 
inevitable  feature  of  all  such  societies  was  the  growth 
of  powerful  aristocratic  corporations,  and  autocratic 
classes  living  in  wealth  and  power  and  keeping  the 
people  in  subjection  while  despising  and  oppressing 
them.  It  is  no  answer,  it  must  be  observed,  to  say 
that  these  societies  were  a  natural  product  of  the 
time,  and  that  if  any  social  group  had  not  been  so 
organised,  it  must  ultimately  have  disappeared  before 
stronger  rivals.  We  can  scarcely  shut  our  eyes  to 
the  fact  that  the  future  did  not  concern  the  existing 
members,  and  that  to  the  great  mass  of  the  people  in 
these  societies,  who  lived  and  suffered  in  subjection 
to  the  dominant  class  which  a  military  organisation 
produced,  the  future  of  society,  or  even  of  the  race, 
was  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference,  compared  with 
the  actual  and  obvious  hardships  of  their  own  op- 
pressed condition  in  the  present. 

When  we  come  to  deal  with  society  as  it  exists 
in  the  highest  and  most  advanced  civilisations  of  our 
time,  and  put  the  same  question  to  ourselves  as  re- 
gards the  conditions  of  existence  for  the  masses  of 
the  people  there,  it  is  startling  to  find  that  we  are 
compelled  to  come  to  a  like  conclusion.  The  con- 
ditions of  existence  even  in  such  communities  can 
apparently  have  no  rational  sanction  for  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  individuals  comprising  them.  When 
the  convenient  fictions  of  society  are  removed,  and 
examination  lays  bare  the  essential  conditions  of  life 
in  the  civilisation  in  which  we  are  living,  the  truth 
stands  out  in  its  naked  significance.  We  are  speak- 
ing, it  must  be  remembered,  of  a  rational  sanction, 
and  reason  has,  in  an  examination  of  this  kind,  noth- 


72  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

ing  to  do  with  any  existence  but  the  present,  which 
it  insists  it  is  our  duty  to  ourselves  to  make  the 
most  of.  The  prevailing  conditions  of  existence  can, 
therefore,  have  no  such  sanction  for  large  masses  of 
the  people  in  societies  where  life  is  a  long  onerous 
rivalry,  where  in  the  nature  of  things  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  all  to  attain  to  success,  and  where  the  many 
work  and  suffer,  and  only  the  few  have  leisure  and 
ease.  Regard  it  how  we  may,  the  conclusion  appears 
inevitable,  that,  to  the  great  masses  of  the  people, 
the  so-called  lower  classes,  in  the  advanced  civilisa- 
tions of  to-day,  the  conditions  under  which  they  live 
and  work  are  still  without  any  rational  sanction. 

That  this  is  no  strained  and  exaggerated  view,  but 
the  sober  truth,  a  little  reflection  must  convince  any 
conscientious  observer.  If  we  look  round  and  en- 
deavour to  regard  sympathetically,  and  yet  as  far  as 
possible  without  bias,  the  remarkable  social  phenom- 
ena of  our  time  in  Germany,  France,  America,  and 
England,  we  shall  find  in  the  utterances  of  those  who 
speak  in  the  name  of  the  masses  of  the  people  a 
meaning  which  cannot  be  mistaken.  Whatever  may 
be  said  of  that  class  of  literature  represented  in  Ger- 
many by  Karl  Marx's  Kapital,  in  America  by  Mr. 
Henry  George's  Progress  and  Poverty,  and  Mr.  Bel- 
lamy's Looking  Backward,  and  in  England  by  the 
Fabian  Essays,  it  is  deserving  of  the  most  careful 
study  by  the  student  of  social  phenomena ;  for  it  is 
here,  and  here  only,  that  he  is  enabled  to  see  with 
the  eyes,  and  to  think  through  the  minds  of  those 
who  see  and  reason  for  that  large  class  of  the  popu- 
lation who  are  confronted  with  the  sterner  realities 
of  our  civilisation.     Whatever  else  may  be  the  effect 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION   FOR   PROGRESS  73 

of  a  close  study  of  this  literature,  it  must  leave  the 
impression  on  the  mind  of  an  unprejudiced  observer, 
that  in  our  present-day  societies,  where  we  base  on 
the  fabric  of  political  equality  the  most  obvious  social 
and  material  inequality,  the  lower  classes  of  our  pop- 
ulation have  no  sanction  from  their  reason  for  main- 
taining existing  conditions.  When  all  due  allowance 
is  made  for  the  misstatements  and  exaggerations  with 
which  much  of  this  kind  of  literature  abounds,  the 
evolutionist  who  understands  his  subject  sees  clearly 
enough  that  the  main  facts  of  the  fundamental  con- 
stitution of  society  are  therein  represented  with  suffi- 
cient approximation  to  truthfulness  to  quite  justify 
this  conclusion. 

No  greater  mistake  can  be  made  than  to  suppose 
that  the  arguments  of  these  writers  have  been  effec- 
tively answered  in  that  class  of  literature  which  is 
usually  to  be  met  with  on  the  other  side.  What 
science  has  for  the  most  part  attempted  to  do  —  and 
what,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  deal  with 
socialism,  she  has  not  the  least  difficulty  in  succeed- 
ing in  doing  —  is  to  prove  that  the  constitution  of 
society  proposed  by  socialist  writers  could  not  be 
permanently  successful,  and  that  it  must  result  in 
the  ultimate  ruin  of  any  people  adopting  it.  But 
this  is  not  a  practical  argument  against  socialism. 
No  lesson  of  the  past  or  of  the  present  can  be  more 
obvious  than  that  men  never  have  been,  and  are  not 
now,  influenced  in  the  least  by  the  opinions  of  sci- 
entists or  any  other  class  of  persons,  however  wise, 
as  to  what  the  result  of  present  conduct,  apparently 
calculated  to  benefit  themselves,  may  be  on  genera- 
tions yet  unborn.    "  How  many  workmen  of  the  pres- 


74  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

ent  day,"  pertinently  asks  a  recent  writer,  "  would 
refuse  an  annuity  of  two  hundred  a  year,  on  the 
chance  that  by  doing  so  they  might  raise  the  rate  of 
wages  i  per  cent  in  the  course  of  three  thousand 
years  ?  "  But  why  talk  of  three  thousand  years  ?  he 
says.  "  Our  care  as  a  matter  of  fact  does  not  extend 
three  hundred.  Do  any  of  us  deny  ourselves  a  single 
scuttle  of  coals  so  as  to  make  our  coal-fields  last  for 
one  more  generation  ? "  And  he  answers  truly  that 
it  is  perfectly  plain  we  do  not.  The  future  is  left  to 
take  care  of  itself.1  The  evolutionist  may  be  con- 
vinced that  what  is  called  the  exploitation  of  the 
masses,  is  but  the  present-day  form  of  the  rivalry  of 
life  which  he  has  watched  from  the  beginning,  and 
that  the  sacrifice  of,  some  in  the  cause  of  the  future 
interests  of  the  whole  social  organism  is  a  necessary 
feature  of  our  progress.  But  this  is  no  real  argument 
addressed  to  those  who  most  naturally  object  to  be 
exploited  and  sacrificed,  and  who  in  our  modern  soci- 
eties are  entrusted  with  power  to  give  political  effect 
to  their  objections.  Science  may  be  painfully  con- 
vinced that  the  realisation  of  the  hopes  of  socialism 
is  quite  incompatible  with  the  ultimate  interests  of  a 
progressive  society  ;  but  it  would  still  be  irrational  to 
expect  even  this  consideration  to  generally  affect  the 
conduct  of  those  who  are  concerned  not  with  the 
problematic  interests  of  others  in  the  distant  future, 
but  with  their  own  interests  in  the  actual  present. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  standpoint  from  which 
we  have  viewed  existing  society  is  not  a  fair  one,  and 
that  we  should  not  take  the  utterances  of  fanatical 

1  "  The  Scientific  Basis  of  Optimism,"  W.  H.  Mallock,  Fortnightly 
Review,  January  1889. 


in  NO   RATIONAL   SANCTION  FOR   PROGRESS  75 

social  reformers 1  as  representative  of  the  reasoning 
to  which  the  lower  classes  at  the  present  day  find 
themselves  driven  when  they  consider  their  position. 
We  have,  however,  only  to  look  round  us  to  find  that 
striking  confirmation  comes  from  many  other  quarters 
of  the  view  that  the  prevailing  conditions  of  existence 
have  no  rational  sanction  for  the  masses  of  the  popu- 
lation who  submit  to  them.  We  have  but  to  observe 
closely  the  literature  of  our  time  to  notice  that  there 
appears  to  be  an  inherent  tendency  for  a  like  conclu- 
sion to  come  to  the  surface  in  the  utterances  of  many 
of  the  philosophical  and  scientific  writers  who  discuss 
social  questions.  The  voice  of  reason  could  hardly 
find  fitter  utterance  than  in  the  words  of  Professor 
Huxley  already  quoted,  in  which,  while  telling  us 
that  at  best  our  civilisation  does  not  embody  any 
worthy  ideal,  or  possess  the  merit  of  stability,  he 
does  not  hesitate  to  further  express  the  opinion  that 
"  if  there  is  no  hope  of  a  large  improvement  of  the 
condition  of  the  greater  part  of  the  human  family" 
—  mark  the  uncompromising  sweep  of  the  words  — 
he  would  hail  the  advent  of  some  kindly  comet  to 
sweep  it  all  away.  "What  profits  it,"  he  asks  perti- 
nently, "  to  the  human  Prometheus  that  he  has  stolen 

1  Mr.  Henry  George  does  not  mince  matters.  He  says :  "  It  is  my 
deliberate  opinion  that  if,  standing  on  the  threshold  of  being,  one  were 
given  the  choice  of  entering  life  as  a  Terra  del  Fuegan,  a  Black  Fellow 
of  Australia,  an  Esquimaux  in  the  Arctic  circle,  or  among  the  lowest 
classes  in  such  a  highly  civilised  country  as  Great  Britain,  he  would 
make  infinitely  the  better  choice  in  selecting  the  lot  of  the  savage  " 
(Progress  and  Poverty,  chap.  ii.  book  v.).  As  Mr.  George  sees  practi- 
cally the  same  social  conditions  throughout  the  greater  part  of  our 
Western  civilisation,  including  the  United  States,  we  must  take  it  that 
this  condemnation  applies  to  all  our  advanced  societies. 


76  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  fire  of  heaven  to  be  his  servant,  and  that  the 
spirits  of  the  earth  and  the  air  obey  him,  if  the  vult- 
ure of  Pauperism  is  eternally  to  tear  his  very  vitals 
and  keep  him  on  the  brink  of  destruction  ? " 

But  it  is  not  that  Professor  Huxley,  and  those  who 
feel  with  him,  hold  any  large  hope  of  improvement. 
He  has  told  us  elsewhere,  and  more  recently,  that 
the  observer  "  must  shut  his  eyes  if  he  would  not  see 
that  more  or  less  enduring  suffering  is  the  meed  of 
both  vanquished  and  victor  "  1  in  our  society,  and  that 
nature  therein  "  wants  nothing  but  a  fair  field  and 
free  play  for  her  darling  the  strongest."2  The  con- 
dition of  life  which  the  French  emphatically  call  la 
mis^re,  that  in  which  the  prospect  of  even,  steady, 
and  honest  industry  is  a  life  of  unsuccessful  battling 
with  hunger,  rounded  by  a  pauper's  grave,  he  holds 
to  be  the  permanent  condition  of  a  large  proportion 
of  the  masses  of  the  people  in  our  civilisation.  He 
says  :  "  Any  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  state  of 
the  population  of  all  great  industrial  centres,  whether 
in  this  or  other  countries,  is  aware  that,  amidst  a 
large  and  increasing  body  of  that  population,  la 
miskre  reigns  supreme.  I  have  no  pretensions  to  the 
character  of  a  philanthropist,  and  I  have  a  special 
horror  of  all  sorts  of  sentimental  rhetoric ;  I  am 
merely  trying  to  deal  with  facts,  to  some  extent 
within  my  own  knowledge,  and  further  evidenced  by 
abundant  testimony,  as  a  naturalist ;  and  I  take  it  to 
be  a  mere  plain  truth  that,  throughout  industrial 
Europe,  there  is  not  a  single  large  manufacturing 
city  which  is  free  from  a  vast  mass  of  people  whose 

1  Social  Diseases  and  Worse  Remedies,  1891,  p.  18. 

2  Ibid.  p.  24. 


in  NO   RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR   PROGRESS  77 

condition  is  exactly  that  described,  and  from  a  still 
greater  mass  who,  living  just  on  the  edge  of  the 
social  swamp,  are  liable  to  be  precipitated  into  it  by 
any  lack  of  demand  for  their  produce.  And,  with 
every  addition  to  the  population,  the  multitude  already 
sunk  in  the  pit  and  the  number  of  the  host  sliding 
towards  it  continually  increase."1 

Here  we  have  not  the  utterance  of  a  fanatic,  but 
the  matured  deliberate  opinion  of  that  leader  of 
science  in  England,  who,  perhaps  more  than  any  of 
his  contemporaries,  has  insisted  that  he  has  made  it 
the  highest  aim  and  the  consistent  endeavour  of  a 
lifetime  to  bring  us  to  look  at  things  from  the  point 
of  view  of  reason  alone.  It  is  an  opinion  as  to  the 
constitution  of  society,  not  be  it  remembered  in  some 
past  and  distant  epoch,  but  of  society  in  the  midst  of 
the  highest  civilisation  of  the  present  day,  and  at  the 
highest  point  which  human  progress  has  reached. 
Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  the  meaning  of  that 
opinion ;  it  is  a  deliberate  verdict  that  the  conditions 
of  life  in  the  advanced  societies  of  to-day  are  with- 
out any  sanction  from  reason  for  the  masses  of  the 
people. 

Nor  if  we  turn  to  the  facts  upon  which  such  a 
judgment  may  be  founded  do  we  find  any  reason  for 
supposing  that  it  is  not  justifiable.  The  remarkable 
series  of  statistical  inquiries  into  the  condition  of  the 
people  in  London,  recently  undertaken  by  Mr.  Charles 
Booth  and  his  assistants,  has  brought  out  in  a  far 
more  impressive  manner  than  any  sensational  litera- 
ture ever  could  do,  what  is  perhaps  the  most  note- 
worthy aspect  of  the  life  of   the  masses  in  such  a 

1  Social  Diseases  and  Worse  Remedies,  1891,  pp.  32,  33. 


78  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

centre  of  our  civilisation,  namely,  the  enormous  pro- 
portion of  the  population  which  exists  in  a  state  of 
chronic  poverty.  The  total  percentage  of  the  popu- 
lation found  to  be  "  in  poverty,"  as  the  result  of  these 
inquiries,  is  stated  to  be  30-7  per  cent  for  all  London. 
This  very  large  percentage  does  not,  it  must  be 
understood,  include  any  of  the  "  regularly  employed 
and  fairly  paid  working  class."  Despite  the  enor- 
mous accumulation  of  wealth  in  the  richest  city  in 
the  world,  the  entire  middle  and  upper  classes  num- 
ber only  I7»8  per  cent  of  the  whole  population.  In 
estimating  the  total  percentage  of  the  population  of 
London  "  in  poverty,"  the  rich  districts  are  of  course 
taken  with  the  poor,  but  in  37  districts,  each  with  a 
total  population  of  over  30,000,  and  containing  alto- 
gether 1,179,000  persons,  the  proportion  in  poverty 
in  no  case  falls  below  40  per  cent,  and  in  some  of 
them  it  reaches  60  per  cent.1  It  is  impossible  to  rise 
from  the  study  of  the  bulky  volumes  containing  the 
enormous  quantity  of  detail  which  lies  behind  these 
bare  figures  without  feeling  that,  while  making  all 
possible  reservations  and  allowances,  the  evidence 
goes  far  to  justify  even  the  strongest  words  of  Pro- 
fessor Huxley. 

Nor  must  these  features  of  our  civilisation  be  held 
to  be  peculiar  to  London.  Other  European  cities 
have  a  like  tale  to  tell.  Even  when  we  turn  to  the 
great  centres  of  population  in  the  New  World  we  find 
the  same  conditions  of  life  reproduced ;  the  same 
ceaseless  competition,  the  same  keen  struggle  for 
employment  and  for  the  means   of   existence;   the 

1  Labour  and  Life  of  the  People  :  London.  Edited  by  Charles  Booth, 
1 89 1,  vol.  ii.  part  I,  chapter  ii. 


in  NO   RATIONAL  SANCTION   FOR   PROGRESS  79 

same  want,  failure,  and  misery  meet  us  on  every  side. 
And  we  find  these  conditions  denounced  by  a  great 
body  of  social  writers  and  social  revolutionists,  from 
Mr.  Henry  George  and  Mr.  Bellamy  onwards,  in  just 
the  same  unmeasured  terms  as  in  the  Old  World, 
and  with  perhaps  even  more  bitterness  and  severity. 

If  we  ask  ourselves,  therefore,  what  course  it  is 
the  interests  of  the  masses  holding  political  power  in 
our  advanced  societies  to  pursue  from  the  standpoint 
of  reason,  it  seems  hardly  possible  to  escape  the  con- 
clusion that  they  should  in  self-interest  put  an  imme- 
diate end  to  existing  social  conditions.  Man  in  these 
societies  has  placed  an  impassable  barrier  between 
him  and  the  brutes,  and  even  between  him  and  his 
less  developed  fellow-creatures.  He  no  longer  fears 
the  rivalry  or  competition  of  either.  The  interest  of 
the  masses  in  such  societies  appears,  therefore,  clearly 
to  be  to  draw  a  ring  fence  round  their  borders;  to 
abolish  competition  within  the  community ;  to  sus- 
pend the  onerous  rivalry  of  individuals  which  presses 
so  severely  on  all ;  to  organise,  on  socialistic  princi- 
ples, the  means  of  production  ;  and  lastly,  and  above 
all,  to  regulate  the  population  so  as  to  keep  it  always 
proportional  to  the  means  of  comfortable  existence 
for  all.  In  a  word,  to  put  an  end  to  those  conditions 
which  the  evolutionist  perceives  to  be  inevitably  and 
necessarily  associated  with  progress  now,  and  to  have 
been  so  associated  with  it,  not  only  from  the  begin- 
ning of  human  society,  but  from  the  beginning  of  life. 

With  whatever  intention  the  evolutionist  may  set 
out,  he  will  speedily  discover,  if  he  carry  his  analysis 
far  enough,  that  so  far  from  society  existing  firmly 
based  on  universal  logic  and  reason,  for  large  masses 


80  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

of  the  population,  alike  in  past  stages  of  our  history 
and  in  the  midst  of  the  highest  civilisations  of  the 
present  day,  reason  has  been,  and  continues  to  be, 
unable  to  offer  any  sanction  for  the  prevailing  condi- 
tions of  life.  The  conclusion  which  gradually  forces 
itself  upon  his  mind  appears  surprising  at  first  sight, 
but  there,  nevertheless,  seems  to  be  no  escape  from 
it.  It  is,  that  the  only  social  doctrines  current  in  the 
advanced  societies  of  to-day  which  have  the  assent  of 
reason  for  the  masses  are  the  doctrines  of  socialism. 
These  doctrines  may  be,  he  may  be  convinced,  utterly 
destructive  to  the  prospects  of  further  progress,  and 
to  the  future  interests  of  society  ;  but  he  is  compelled 
to  admit  that  this  is  no  concern  of  the  individual 
whose  interest  it  is  not  to  speculate  about  a  problem- 
atical future  for  unborn  generations,  but  to  make  the 
best  of  the  present  for  himself  according  to  his  lights. 
Undoubtedly,  as  John  Stuart  Mill  was  clear-sighted 
enough  to  observe,  if,  apart  from  all  speculations  as  to 
the  regeneration  of  society  in  the  future,  the  choice 
were  to  be  "  between  communism  with  all  its  chances 
and  the  present  state  of  society  with  all  its  sufferings 
and  injustices  ...  all  the  difficulties  great  or  small  of 
communism  would  be  but  as  dust  in  the  balance."  1 

It  is  necessary,  if  we  would  understand  the  nature 
of  the  problem  with  which  we  have  to  deal,  to  disa- 
buse our  minds  of  the  very  prevalent  idea  that  the 
doctrines  of  socialism  are  the  heated  imaginings  of 
unbalanced  brains.  They  are  nothing  of  the  kind ; 
they  are  the  truthful  unexaggerated  teaching  of 
sober  reason.  Nor  can  we  stop  here.  It  is  evident 
that  any  organisation  of  society  with  a  system  of 

i  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  p.  128. 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  81 

rewards  according  to  natural  ability  can  have  no 
ultimate  sanction  in  reason  for  all  the  individuals. 
For  as  the  teaching  of  reason  undoubtedly  is  that 
we  are  all  the  creatures  of  inheritance  and  environ- 
ment, and  that  none  of  us  is  responsible  for  his  abili- 
ties or  for  the  want  of  them,  so  in  reason  all  should 
share  alike.  Their  welfare  in  the  present  existence 
is  just  as  important  to  the  ungifted  as  to  the  gifted, 
and  any  regulation  that  the  former  should  fare  any 
worse  than  the  latter  must  be  ultimately,  however 
we  may  obscure  it,  a  rule  of  brute  force  pure  and 
simple.  There  can  be  to  these  no  rational  sanc- 
tion for  any  organisation  of  society  other  than  that 
under  which  all  men  should  fare  exactly  alike,  the 
wise  and  the  stupid,  the  gifted  and  the  ungifted.  It 
would  be  an  extremely  difficult  if  not  an  impossible 
task  to  find  any  halting-place  for  reason  before  the 
doctrines  of  anarchy,  the  advocates  of  which,  in  the 
words  of  the  anarchist  Michael  Bakunin,  "object  to 
all  authority  and  all  influence,  privileged,  patented, 
official,  and  legal,  even  when  it  proceeds  from  uni- 
versal suffrage,  convinced  that  it  must  always  turn  to 
the  profit  of  a  domineering  and  exploiting  minority 
against  the  interest  of  the  immense  majority  en- 
slaved." Reason  may  moderate  the  terms  in  which 
this  conception  is  expressed,  and  it  might,  and  proba- 
bly would,  transpose  the  terms  majority  and  minority 
as  used  therein,  but  it  would  find  it  difficult  to  show 
any  convincing  cause  to  an  absolutely  unbiassed  mind 
for  otherwise  withholding  its  assent  to  even  this  ex- 
treme view  of  society.1 

1  We  too  readily  assume  that  from  the  rationalistic  point  of  view 
there  is  in  the  nature  of  things  a  sanction  for  our  conduct  in  society 
G 


82  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

The  extraordinary  character  of  the  problem  pre- 
sented by  human  society  begins  thus  slowly  to  come 
into  view.  We  find  man  making  continual  progress 
upwards,  progress  which  it  is  almost  beyond  the 
power  of  the  imagination  to  grasp.  From  being  a 
competitor  of  the  brutes  he  has  reached  a  point  of 
development   at  which   he   cannot   himself  set   any 

other  than  that  which  a  rule  of  force  (maintained  by  the  will  of  the 
majority  or  of  a  ruling  class)  provides.  To  commit  a  fraud  on  a  rail- 
way company  is  an  act  which  would  probably  be  condemned  by  many 
socialists  from  other  motives  than  mere  regard  for  its  inexpediency. 
But  there  are  others  who  do  not  hesitate  to  carry  the  logical  process 
out  to  the  end.  Mr.  Belfort  Bax,  in  his  Religion  of  Socialism  (pub- 
lished by  Swan  Sonnenschein  &  Co.  in  their  "  Social  Science  "  series), 
maintains  that  "  a  waft  of  healthy  moral  instinct  whispers  to  a  man  that 
it  is  not  the  same  thing  to  '  defraud '  a  ■  company '  as  to  rob  his 
neighbour."  Addressing  the  railway  company  he  says :  "  Business  is 
business ;  let  us  have  no  sentimentality.  We  are  on  a  footing  of  com- 
petition, only  that  it  is  not  '  free,'  seeing  that  you  have  the  law  on  your 
side.  However,  let  that  bide.  Your  'business'  is  to  get  as  much 
money-value  as  possible  out  of  me  the  passenger  on  your  line  ('  convey- 
ance '  being  the  specific  form  of  social  utility  your  capital  works  in,  in 
order  to  realise  itself  as  surplus  value),  and  to  give  as  little  as  possible 
in  return,  only  in  fact  so  much  as  will  make  your  line  pay.  My  '  busi- 
ness,' as  an  individual  passenger,  on  the  contrary,  is  to  get  as  much  use- 
value,  to  derive  as  much  advantage  from  the  social  function  which  you 
casually  perform  in  pursuance  of  your  profit,  as  I  possibly  can,  and  to 
give  you  as  little  as  possible  in  return.  You  seek  under  the  protection 
of  the  law  to  guard  yourself  from  "  fraud,'  as  you  term  it.  Good.  If 
I  can  evade  the  law  passed  in  your  interest  and  elude  your  vigilance, 
I  have  a  perfect  right  to  do  so,  and  my  success  in  doing  so  will  be  the 
reward  of  my  ingenuity.  If  I  fail  I  am  only  an  unfortunate  man.  The 
talk  of  'dishonesty'  or  'dishonour'  where  no  moral  obligation  or 
'  duty  '  can  possibly  exist  is  absurd.  You  choose  to  make  certain  arbi- 
trary rules  to  regulate  the  commercial  game.  I  decline  to  pledge  my- 
self to  be  bound  by  them,  and  in  so  doing  I  am  clearly  within  my  moral 
right.  We  each  try  to  get  as  much  out  of  the  other  as  we  can,  you  in 
your  way,  I  in  mine.  Only,  I  repeat,  you  are  backed  by  the  law,  I  am 
not.     That  is  all  the  difference." 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  83 

limits  to  the  possibilities  of  further  progress,  and  at 
which  he  is  evidently  marching  onwards  to  a  high  des- 
tiny. He  has  made  this  advance  under  the  sternest 
conditions,  involving  rivalry  and  competition  for  all, 
and  the  failure  and  suffering  of  great  numbers.  His 
reason  has  been,  and  necessarily  continues  to  be,  a 
leading  factor  in  this  development ;  yet,  granting,  as 
we  apparently  must  grant,  the  possibility  of  the  re- 
versal of  the  conditions  from  which  his  progress  re- 
sults, these  conditions  have  not  any  sanction  from  his 
reason.  They  have  had  no  such  sanction  at  any  stage 
of  his  history,  and  they  continue  to  be  as  much  with- 
out such  sanction  in  the  highest  civilisations  of  the 
present  day  as  at  any  past  period. 

There  emerges  now  clearly  into  sight  a  funda- 
mental principle  that  underlies  that  social  develop- 
ment which  has  been  in  progress  throughout  history, 
and  which  is  proceeding  with  acclerated  pace  in  our 
modern  civilisation.  It  is  that  in  this  development 
the  interests  of  the  individual  and  those  of  the  social 
organism  to  which  he  belongs  are  not  identical.  The 
teaching  of  reason  to  the  individual  must  always  be 
that  the  present  time  and  his  own  interests  therein 
are  all-important  to  him.  Yet  the  forces  which  are 
working  out  our  development  are  primarily  concerned 
not  with  these  interests  of  the  individual,  but  with 
those  widely  different  interests  of  a  social  organism 
subject  to  quite  other  conditions  and  possessed  of  an 
indefinitely  longer  life.  These  latter  interests  are  at 
any  time  not  only  greater  than  those  of  any  class  of 
individuals :  they  are  greater  than  those  of  all  the  in- 
dividuals of  any  single  generation.  Nay  more,  as  we 
shall  see,  they  are  at  times  greater  than  those  of  all 


84  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  individuals  of  a  whole  series  of  generations.  And 
in  the  development  which  is  in  progress  it  is  a  first 
principle  of  evolutionary  science  that  it  is  these 
greater  interests  that  must  be  always  paramount. 
The  central  fact  with  which  we  are  confronted  in  our 
progressive  societies  is,  therefore,  that  the  interests 
of  the  social  organism  and  those  of  the  individuals 
comprising  it  at  any  time  are  actually  antagonistic ; 
they  can  never  be  reconciled;  they  are  inherently 
and  essentially  irreconcilable. 

The  far-reaching  consequences  which  flow  from  the 
recognition  of  this  single  fact,  brought  out  when  we 
come  to  apply  the  teaching  of  evolutionary  science 
to  society,  will  become  evident  as  we  proceed.  Its 
revolutionary  significance  is,  however,  immediately 
apparent.  If  the  interests  of  a  progressive  society 
as  a  whole,  and  those  of  the  individuals  at  any  time 
comprising  it,  are  innately  irreconcilable,  it  is  evident 
that  there  can  never  be,  for  the  individuals  in  those 
societies,  any  universal  rational  sanction  for  the  con- 
ditions of  existence  necessarily  prevailing.  We  look 
at  the  entire  question  of  social  development  from  a 
new  standpoint.  We  stand,  as  it  were,  at  the  centre 
of  the  great  maelstrom  of  human  history,  and  see 
why  all  those  systems  of  moral  philosophy,  which 
have  sought  to  find  in  the  nature  of  things  a  rational 
sanction  for  human  conduct  in  society,  must  sweep 
round  and  round  in  futile  circles.  They  attempt  an 
inherently  impossible  task.  The  first  great  social 
lesson  of  those  evolutionary  doctrines  which  have 
transformed  the  science  of  the  nineteenth  century  is, 
that  there  cannot  be  such  a  sanction. 

From  the  first  awakening  of  the  Greek  mind  with 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR   PROGRESS  85 

Thales,  onward  through  the  speculations  of  Socrates, 
Plato,  and  Zeno ;  underneath  the  systems  of  Seneca 
and  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  of  Spinoza,  Kant,  Fichte, 
Hegel,  and  Comte  ;  in  the  utilitarianism  of  Hobbes, 
Locke,  Hume,  Bentham,  the  Mills,  and  Herbert 
Spencer,  the  one  consistent  practical  aim  which  con- 
nects together  all  the  widely  different  efforts  and 
methods  of  philosophy  has  been  to  discover  in  the 
nature  of  things  a  rational  sanction  for  individual 
conduct.  George  Henry  Lewes  notes  the  continued 
failure  of  philosophy  to  solve  the  capital  problems 
of  human  existence,  only,  however,  to  attribute  the 
result  to  the  absence  of  the  positive  method  asso- 
ciated with  the  name  of  Auguste  Comte.  But  it 
would  appear  that  all  methods  and  systems  alike, 
which  have  endeavoured  to  find  in  the  nature  of 
things  any  universal  rational  sanction  for  individual 
conduct  in  a  progressive  society,  must  be  ultimately 
fruitless.  They  are  all  alike,  inherently  unscientific 
in  that  they  attempt  to  do  what  the  fundamental  con- 
ditions of  existence  render  impossible.  The  positive 
system,  no  less  than  the  others,  and  only  all  the  more 
surely  because  it  is  positive,  must  apparently  also  be 
a  failure. 

The  transforming  fact  which  the  scientific  develop- 
ment of  the  nineteenth  .century  has  confronted  us 
with  is,  that,  as  the  interests  of  the  social  organism 
and  of  the  individual  are,  and  must  remain,  antago- 
nistic, and  the  former  must  always  be  predominant, 
there  can  never  be  found  any  sanction  in  individual 
reason  for  conduct  in  societies  where  the  conditions 
of  progress  prevail.  One  of  the  first  results  of  the 
application  of  the  methods  and  conclusions   of   the 


86  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap,  in 

biological  science  of  our  time  to  social  phemonena 
must  apparently  be  to  bring  to  a  close  that  long- 
drawn-out  stage  of  thought  in  which  for  2300  years 
the  human  mind  has  engaged  in  a  task,  the  accom- 
plishment of  which  fundamental  organic  conditions 
of  life  render  inherently  impossible.1 

1  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  conception  of  a  state  of  society  in  which 
the  interests  of  the  individual  and  those  of  society  are  reconciled  {Data 
of  Ethics),  is  discussed  in  chapter  x.  It  must  ever  remain  an  incalcu- 
lable loss  to  English  science  and  English  philosophy,  that  the  author  of 
the  Synthetic  Philosophy  did  not  undertake  his  great  task  later  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  As  time  goes  on,  it  will  become  clearer  what  the 
nature  of  that  loss  has  been.  It  will  be  perceived  that  the  conception 
of  his  work  was  practically  complete  before  his  intellect  had  any  oppor- 
tunity of  realising  the  full  transforming  effect  in  the  higher  regions  of 
thought,  and,  more  particularly,  in  the  department  of  sociology,  of  that 
development  of  biological  science  which  began  with  Darwin,  which  is 
still  in  full  progress,  and  to  which  Professor  Weismann  has  recently 
made  the  most  notable  contributions. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   CENTRAL   FEATURE   OF    HUMAN    HISTORY 

The  outlines  of  the  great  fundamental  problem 
which  underlies  our  social  development  are  now 
clearly  visible.  We  have  a  rational  creature  whose 
reason  is  itself  one  of  the  leading  factors  in  the  prog- 
ress he  is  making ;  but  who  is  nevertheless  subject, 
in  common  with  all  other  forms  of  life,  to  certain 
organic  laws  of  existence  which  render  his  progress 
impossible  in  any  other  way  than  by  submitting  to 
conditions  that  can  never  have  any  ultimate  sanction 
in  his  reason.  He  is  undergoing  a  social  develop- 
ment in  which  his  individual  interests  are  not  only 
subservient  to  the  interests  of  the  general  progress 
of  the  race,  but  in  which  they  are  being  increasingly 
subordinated  to  the  welfare  of  a  social  organism 
possessing  widely  different  interests,  and  an  indefi- 
nitely longer  life. 

It  is  evident  that  we  have  here  all  the  elements  of 
a  problem  of  capital  importance  —  a  problem  quite 
special  and  entirely  different  from  any  that  the  history 
of  life  has  ever  before  presented.  On  the  one  side 
we  have  the  self-assertive  reason  of  the  individual 
necessarily  tending  to  be  ever  more  and  more  devel- 
oped by  the  evolutionary  forces  at  work.  On  the 
other,  we  have  the  immensely  wider  interests  of  the 
social  organism,  and  behind  it  those  of  the  race  in 

87 


88  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

general,  demanding,  nevertheless,  the  most  absolute 
subordination  of  this  ever-increasing  rational  self- 
assertiveness  in  the  individual.  We  find,  in  fact,  if 
progress  is  to  continue,  that  the  individual  must  be 
compelled  to  submit  to  conditions  of  existence  of  the 
most  onerous  kind  which,  to  all  appearance,  his  reason 
actually  gives  him  the  power  to  suspend  —  and  all  to 
further  a  development  in  which  he  has  not,  and  in 
which  he  never  can  have,  qua  individual,  the  slightest 
practical  interest.  We  have,  it  would  appear,  hence- 
forth to  witness  the  extraordinary  spectacle  of  man, 
moved  by  a  profound  social  instinct,  continually  en- 
deavouring in  the  interests  of  his  social  progress  to 
check  and  control  the  tendency  of  his  own  reason  to 
suspend  and  reverse  the  conditions  which  are  produc- 
ing this  progress. 

In  the  conflict  which  results,  we  have  the  seat  of  a 
vast  series  of  phenomena  constituting  the  absolutely 
characteristic  feature  of  our  social  evolution.  It  is 
impossible  to  fully  understand  the  spectacle  presented 
by  human  history  in  the  past  on  the  one  hand,  or  the 
main  features  of  the  social  phonomena,  now  present- 
ing themselves  throughout  our  Western  civilisation 
on  the  other,  without  getting  to  the  heart  of  this  con- 
flict. It  is  the  pivot  upon  which  the  whole  drama  of 
human  history  and  human  development  turns. 

If  we  could  conceive  a  visitor  from  another  planet 
coming  amongst  us,  and  being  set  down  in  the  midst 
of  our  Western  civilisation  at  the  present  day,  there 
is  one  feature  of  our  life  which,  we  might  imagine, 
could  not  fail  to  excite  his  interest  and  curiosity.  If 
we  could  suppose  him  taken  round  London,  Paris, 
Berlin,  or   New   York,  or   any   other    great    centre 


iv      THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF   HUMAN   HISTORY      89 

of  population,  by  some  man  of  light  and  leading 
amongst  us,  we  might  easily  imagine  the  anxiety  of 
his  conductor  to  worthily  explain  to  him  the  nature 
and  the  meaning  of  those  aspects  of  our  society 
which  there  presented  themselves.  After  all  the 
outward  features,  the  streets,  the  crowds,  the  build- 
ings, and  the  means  of  traffic  and  communication 
had  received  attention,  we  might  expect  our  man  of 
science  to  explain  to  his  visitor  something  of  the 
nature  of  the  wonderful  social  organisation  of  which 
the  outward  features  presented  themselves.  Our 
trades  and  manufactures,  our  commerce,  our  methods 
of  government,  the  forces  at  work  amongst  us,  and 
the  problems,  social  and  political,  which  occupy  our 
minds,  would  doubtless  all  receive  notice.  Some- 
thing, too,  of  our  history  would  be  related,  and  our 
relations,  past  and  present,  to  other  nations,  and 
even  to  other  sections  of  the  human  race,  would 
probably  be  explained. 

But  when  our  visitor  had  lived  amongst  us  for  a 
little  time,  he  would  probably  find  that  there  was  one 
most  obvious  feature  of  our  life  about  which  he  had 
been  told  nothing,  yet  respecting  which  he  would,  as 
an  intelligent  observer,  sooner  or  later  ask  for  infor- 
mation. He  would  have  noticed  at  every  turn  in  our 
cities  great  buildings  — churches,  temples,  and  cathe- 
drals —  and  he  would  have  seen  also  that  wherever 
men  lived  together  in  small  groups  they  erected  these 
buildings.  He  would  have  noticed  the  crowds  which 
periodically  frequented  them  ;  and  if  he  had  listened 
to  the  docrines  taught  therein  he  could  not  fail  to  be 
deeply  interested.  As  his  knowledge  of  us  grew  he 
would  learn  that  these  institutions  were  not  peculiar 


90  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

to  any  particular  place,  or  even  to  the  people  amongst 
whom  he  found  himself;  that  they  were  also  a  dis- 
tinguishing feature  of  other  cities  and  other  coun- 
tries ;  that  they  existed  throughout  the  greater  part 
of  the  civilised  world,  and  that  similar  institutions 
had  been  a  characteristic  feature  of  human  life  as  far 
back  as  history  extends. 

If,  at  this  stage,  he  had  ventured  to  ask  his  guide 
for  some  explanation  of  these  phenomena,  he  would 
not  improbably  begin  to  feel  somewhat  puzzled.  For 
if  his  guide  had  spoken  as  the  spokesmen  of  science 
sometimes  do  speak  nowadays,  the  information  given 
would  probably  not  have  been  altogether  satisfying. 
The  visitor  would  possibly  have  learned  from  him 
that  the  religious  beliefs,  which  maintained  these 
institutions,  were  by  some  held  to  represent  the  sur- 
vival of  an  instinct  peculiar  to  the  childhood  of  the 
race ;  that  they  were  by  others  supposed  to  have  had 
their  origin  in  ancestor-worship  and  a  belief  in  ghosts. 
He  might  even  have  expressed  his  own  opinion 
that  they  belonged  to  a  past  age,  and  that  they 
were  generally  discredited  by  the  intellectual  class. 
Pressed  for  any  further  information  he  might  have 
added  that  science  did  not  really  pay  much  attention 
to  the  phenomena ;  that  she,  in  general,  regarded 
them  with  some  degree  of  contempt  and  even  of 
bitterness,  for,  that,  during  many  centuries  these 
religions  had  maintained  a  vast  conspiracy  against 
her,  had  persecuted  her  champions,  and  had  used 
stupendous  and  extraordinary  efforts  to  stifle  and 
strangle  her.  The  guide,  if  he  were  a  man  of  dis- 
crimination, might  even  have  added  tljat  the  feud  was 
still  continued  under  all  the  outward  appearances  of 


iv       THE   CENTRAL   FEATURE   OF    HUMAN    HISTORY      91 

truce  and  friendliness ;  that  it  was,  in  reality,  only  by 
her  victories  in  applying  her  discoveries  to  the  prac- 
tical benefit  of  the  race  that  science  had  finally  been 
able  to  secure  her  position  against  her  adversary  ; 
and  that  in  its  heart  one  of  the  parties  still  continued 
to  regard  the  other  as  a  mortal  enemy  which  only 
the  altered  circumstances  prevented  it  from  openly 
assailing. 

Such  a  visitor  could  not  fail  to  find  his  interest 
continue  to  grow  as  he  listened  to  such  details.  But 
if  he  had  pressed  for  further  information  as  to  the 
nature  of  this  conflict,  and  had  sought  to  learn  what 
law  or  meaning  underlay  this  extraordinary  instinct 
which  had  thus  driven  successive  generations  of  men 
to  carry  on  such  a  prolonged  and  desperate  struggle 
against  forces  set  in  motion  by  their  own  intellect, 
it  is  not  improbable  that  his  guide  would  at  this 
point  have  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  changed  the 
subject. 

This  is  probably  all  the  visitor  would  learn  in  this 
manner.  Yet,  as  his  perplexity  increased,  so  also 
might  his  interest  be  expected  to  grow.  As  he  learnt 
more  of  our  history -he  would  not  fail  to  observe  the 
important  part  these  religions  had  played  therein. 
Nay,  as  he  came  to  understand  it  and  to  view  it,  as 
he  would  be  able  to  do,  without  prepossession,  he 
would  see  that  it  consisted  to  a  large  extent  of  the 
history  of  the  religious  systems  he  saw  around  him. 
As  he  extended  his  view  to  the  history  of  other 
nations,  and  to  that  of  our  civilisation  in  general,  he 
would  be  met  with  features  equally  striking.  He 
would  observe  that  these  systems  had  exercised  the 
same   influence  there,  and  that  the  history  of   our 


92  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

Western  civilisation  was  largely  but  the  life-history  of 
a  particular  form  of  religion  and  of  wide-extending 
and  deep-seated  social  movements  connected  there- 
with. He  would  see  that  these  movements  had  deeply 
affected  entire  nations,  and  that  revolutions  to  which 
they  gave  rise  had  influenced  national  development 
and  even  to  a  considerable  extent  directed  its  course 
amongst  nearly  all  the  peoples  taking  a  leading  part 
in  the  world  around  him. 

As  he  inquired  deeper  he  could  not  fail  to  be  struck 
by  the  extraordinary  depth  and  dimensions  of  the 
conflict  to  which  his  guide  had  incidentally  referred, 
namely,  that  waged  between  these  religions  and  the 
forces  set  in  motion  by  human  reason  ;  and  he  would 
see  also,  that  not  only  had  it  extended  through  a  great 
part  of  the  history  of  Western  civilisation,  but  that 
it  was  quite  true  that  it  was  still  in  progress.  Re- 
garding this  conflict  impartially,  he  could  not  fail  also 
to  be  impressed  profoundly  by  the  persistence  of  the 
instinct  which  inspired  it,  and  he  would  doubtless  con- 
clude that  it  must  have  some  significance  in  the  evo- 
lution which  we  were  undergoing. 

His  bewilderment  would  probably  increase  as  he 
looked  beneath  the  surface  of  society.  He  would 
see  that  he  was  in  reality  living  in  the  midst  of  a 
civilisation  where  the  habits,  customs,  laws,  and  in- 
stitutions of  the  people  had  been  influenced  in  almost 
every  detail  by  these  religions ;  that,  although  a  large 
proportion  of  the  population  were  quite  unconscious 
of  it,  their  conceptions  of  their  rights  and  duties,  and 
of  their  relationship  to  each  other,  their  ideas  of 
liberty,  and  even  of  government  and  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  society,  had  been  largely  shaped 


iv      THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF   HUMAN   HISTORY     93 

by  doctrines  taught  in  connection  with  them.  Nay, 
more,  he  would  see  that  those  who  professed  to  en- 
tirely repudiate  the  teachings  of  these  religions, 
were  almost  as  directly  affected  as  other  sections  of 
the  community,  and  that  whatever  their  private  opin- 
ions might  be,  they  were  quite  powerless  to  escape 
the  influences  of  the  prevailing  tone  and  the  devel- 
opmental tendencies  of  the  society  in  which  they 
lived. 

But  the  feature  which  would  perhaps  interest  him 
most  of  all  would  probably  attract  attention  later. 
He  would  observe  that  these  forms  of  religious  belief 
which  his  guide  had  spoken  of  as  survivals,  had  never- 
theless the  support  of  a  large  proportion  of  perfectly 
sincere  and  earnest  persons  ;  and  that  great  move- 
ments in  connection  with  the  prevailing  forms  of 
belief  were  still  in  progress ;  and  that  these  move- 
ments, when  they  were  studied,  proved  to  have  the 
characteristic  features  which  had  distinguished  all 
similar  movements  in  the  past.  He  would  find  that 
they  were  not  only  independent  of,  but  in  direct  con- 
flict with  the  intellectual  forces  ;  that  although  they 
not  infrequently  originated  with  obscure  and  uncult- 
ured persons,  they  spread  with  marvellous  rapidity, 
profoundly  influencing  immense  bodies  of  men  and 
producing  effects  quite  beyond  the  control  of  the 
intellectual  forces  of  the  time. 

Such  a  visitor,  at  length,  would  not  fail  to  be 
deeply  impressed  by  what  he  had  observed.  He 
would  be  driven  to  conclude  that  he  was  dealing  with 
phenomena,  the  laws  and  nature  of  which  were  little 
understood  by  the  people  amongst  whom  he  found 
himself ;  and  that  whatever  might  be  the  meaning 


94  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

of  these  phenomena  they  undoubtedly  constituted 
one  of  the  most  persistent  and  characteristic  features 
of  human  society,  and  not  only  in  past  ages  but  at 
the  present  day. 

If,  however,  our  visitor  at  last  endeavoured  to  obtain 
for  himself  by  a  systematic  study  of  the  literature  of 
the  subject  some  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  phe- 
nomena he  was  regarding,  the  state  of  things  which 
would  meet  his  view  would  excite  his  wonder  not  a 
little.  If  at  the  outset  he  endeavoured  to  discover 
what  all  these  various  forms  of  religion  admittedly 
had  in  common,  that  is  to  say,  the  distinguishing 
characteristic  they  all  possessed,  from  the  forms  of 
belief  prevalent  amongst  men  in  a  low  social  state  up 
to  those  highly-developed  religions  which  were  play- 
ing so  large  a  part  in  the  life  of  civilised  peoples, 
he  would  be  met  by  a  curious  fact.  He  would  find 
everywhere  discussions  on  the  subject  of  religion. 
Besides  an  immense  theological  literature,  exclusively 
devoted  to  the  matter,  he  would  encounter  the  term 
at  every  turn  in  the  philosophical  and  social  writings 
of  the  time.  He  would  find  a  vast  number  of  treatises, 
and  innumerable  shorter  works  and  articles  in  peri- 
odical publications,  devoted  to  discussions  connected 
with  the  subject  and  to  almost  every  aspect  of  the 
great  number  of  questions  more  or  less  intimately 
associated  with  it.  But  for  one  thing  he  would  search 
in  vain.  He  would  probably  be  unable  anywhere  to 
discover  any  satisfactory  definition  of  this  term  "  re- 
ligion "  which  all  the  writers  were  so  constantly  using, 
or  any  general  evidence  that  those  who  carried  on 
the  discussions  had  any  definite  view  as  to  the  func- 
tion in  our  social  development  of  the  beliefs  they  dis- 


iv      THE  CENTRAL   FEATURE  OF   HUMAN   HISTORY      95 

puted  about,  if,  indeed,  they  considered  it  necessary 
to  hold  that  they  had  any  function  at  all. 

He  would  probably  find,  at  a  very  early  stage,  that 
all  the  authorities  could  not  possibly  intend  the  word 
in  the  same  sense.  At  the  one  extreme  he  would  find 
that  there  was  a  certain  class  of  beliefs  calling  them- 
selves religions,  possessed  of  well-marked  character- 
istics, and  undoubtedly  influencing  in  a  particular 
manner  great  numbers  of  persons.  At  the  other  he 
would  find  a  class  of  persons  claiming  to  speak  in  the 
name  of  science,  repudiating  all  the  main  features  of 
these,  and  speaking  of  a  true  religion  which  would 
survive  all  that  they  held  to  be  false  in  them,  i.e.  all 
that  the  others  held  to  be  essential.  Between  these 
two  camps,  he  would  find  an  irregular  army  of  per- 
sons who  seemed  to  think  that  the  title  of  religion 
might  be  properly  applied  to  any  form  of  belief  they 
might  hold,  and  might  choose  so  to  describe.  He 
would  hear  of  the  religion  of  Science,  of  the  religion 
of  Philosophy,  of  the  religion  of  Humanity,  of  the 
religion  of  Reason,  of  the  religion  of  Socialism,  of 
Natural  Religion,  and  of  many  others.  In  the  ab- 
sence of  any  definite  general  conception  as  to 
what  the  function  of  a  religion  really  was,  it  would 
appear  to  be  held  possible  to  apply  this  term  to 
almost  any  form  of  belief  (or  unbelief),  with  equal 
propriety. 

If  he  attempted  at  last  to  draw  up  a  list  of  some 
representative  definitions  formulated  by  leading  au- 
thorities representing  various  views,  he  would  find 
the  definitions  themselves  puzzling  and  conflicting 
to  an  extraordinary  degree.  It  might  run  somewhat 
as  follows  :  — 


96  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

Current  Definitions  of  Religion. 

Seneca.  —  To  know  God  and  imitate  Him. 

Kant.  —  Religion  consists  in  our  recognising  all  our  duties  as 
Divine  commands. 

Ruskin.  —  Our  national  religion  is  the  performance  of  Church 
ceremonies,  and  preaching  of  soporific  truths  (or  untruths)  to 
keep  the  mob  quietly  at  work  while  we  amuse  ourselves. 

Matthew  Arnold.  —  Religion  is  morality  touched  by  emotion. 

Comte.  —  The  Worship  of  Humanity. 

Alexander  Bain.  —  The  religious  sentiment  is  constituted  by 
the  Tender  Emotion,  together  with  Fear,  and  the  Sentiment  of 
the  Sublime. 

Edward  Caird.  —  A  man's  religion  is  the  expression  of  his 
ultimate  attitude  to  the  Universe,  the  summed-up  meaning  and 
purport  of  his  whole  consciousness  of  things. 

Hegel.  —  The  knowledge  acquired  by  the  Finite  Spirit  of  its 
essence  as  an  Absolute  Spirit. 

Huxley.  —  Reverence  and  love  for  the  Ethical  ideal,  and  the 
desire  to  realise  that  ideal  in  life. 

Froude.  —  A  sense  of  responsibility  to  the  Power  that  made  us. 

Mill.  —  The  essence  of  Religion  is  the  strong  and  earnest 
direction  of  the  emotions  and  desires  towards  an  ideal  object, 
recognised  as  of  the  highest  excellence,  and  as  rightly  para- 
mount over  all  selfish  objects  of  desire. 

Gruppe.  —  A  belief  in  a  State  or  in  a  Being  which,  properly 
speaking,  lies  outside  the  sphere  of  human  striving  and  attain- 
ment, but  which  can  be  brought  into  this  sphere  in  a  particular 
way,  namely,  by  sacrifices,  ceremonies,  prayers,  penances,  and 
self-denial. 

Carlyle.  —  The  thing  a  man  does  practically  believe  ;  the  thing 
a  man  does  practically  lay  to  heart,  and  know  for  certain,  con- 
cerning his  vital  relations  to  this  mysterious  Universe  and  his 
duty  and  destiny  therein. 

The  Author  of '"  Natural  Religion."  —  Religion  in  its  ele- 
mentary state  is  what  may  be  described  as  habitual  and  perma- 
nent admiration. 

Dr.  Martineau.  —  Religion  is  a  belief  in  an  everlasting  God ; 
that  is,  a  Divine  mind  and  will,  ruling  the  Universe,  and  holding 
moral  relations  with  mankind. 


iv      THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN   HISTORY      97 

The  perplexity  of  our  imaginary  visitor  at  finding 
such  a  list  grow  under  his  hand  (and  it  might  be 
almost  indefinitely  prolonged)  could  well  be  conceived. 
It  would  seem  almost  inevitable  that  he  must  sooner 
or  later  be  driven  to  conclude  that  he  was  dealing 
with  a  class  of  phenomena,  the  key  to  which  he  did 
not  possess. 

If  we  can  now  conceive  such  an  observer  able  to 
look  at  the  whole  matter  from  an  outside  and  quite 
independent  point  of  view,  there  is  a  feature  of  the 
subject  which  might  be  expected  ultimately  to  im- 
press itself  upon  his  imagination.  The  one  idea  which 
would  slowly  take  possession  of  his  mind  would  be 
that  underneath  all  this  vast  series  of  phenomena 
with  which  he  was  confronted,  he  beheld  man  in 
some  way  in  conflict  with  his  own  reason.  The  evi- 
dence as  to  this  conflict  would  be  unmistakable,  and 
all  the  phenomena  connected  with  it  might  be  seen 
to  group  themselves  naturally  under  one  head.  It 
would  be  perceived  that  it  was  these  forms  of  religious 
belief  which  had  supplied  the  motive  power  in  an  ex- 
traordinary struggle  which  man  had  apparently  car- 
ried on  throughout  his  whole  career  against  forces 
set  in  motion  by  his  own  mind  —  a  struggle,  grim, 
desperate,  and  tragic,  which  would  stand  out  as  one 
of  the  most  pronounced  features  of  his  history. 

From  the  point  at  which  science  first  encountered 
him  emerging  from  the  obscurity  of  prehistoric  times, 
down  into  the  midst  of  contemporary  affairs,  it  would 
be  seen  that  this  struggle  had  never  ceased.  It  had 
assumed,  and  was  still  assuming,  various  forms,  and 
different  symbols  at  different  times  represented,  more 
or  less  imperfectly,  the  opposing  forces.     Superstition 


98  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

and  Knowledge,  the  Ecclesiastical  and  the  Civil, 
Church  and  State,  Dogma  and  Doubt,  Faith  and 
Reason,  the  Sacred  and  the  Profane,  the  Spiritual 
and  the  Temporal,  Religion  and  Science,  Super- 
naturalism  and  Rationalism,  these  are  some  of  the 
terms  which  would  be  found  to  have  expressed,  some- 
times fully,  sometimes  only  partially,  the  forces  in 
opposition.  Not  only  would  the  conflict  be  perceived 
to  be  still  amongst  us,  but  its  dominant  influence 
would  be  distinguished  beneath  all  the  complex  social 
phenomena  of  the  time,  and  even  behind  those  new 
forces  unloosed  by  the  social  revolution  which  was 
filling  the  period  in  which  the  current  generation 
were  living. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  features  which  the 
observer  could  not  fail  to  notice  in  connection  with 
these  religions,  would  be,  that  under  their  influence 
man  would  seem  to  be  possessed  of  an  instinct,  the 
like  of  which  he  would  not  encounter  anywhere  else. 
This  instinct,  under  all  its  forms,  would  be  seen  to 
have  one  invariable  characteristic.  Moved  by  it,  man 
would  appear  to  be  always  possessed  by  the  desire  to 
set  up  sanctions  for  his  individual  conduct,  which 
would  appear  to  be  Super-naXmal  against  those  which 
were  natural,  sanctions  which  would  appear  to  be 
?///ra-rational  against  those  which  were  simply 
rational.  Everywhere  he  would  find  him  clinging 
with  the  most  extraordinary  persistence  to  ideas  and 
ideals  which  regulated  his  life  under  the  influence  of 
these  religions,  and  ruthlessly  persecuting  all  those 
who  endeavoured  to  convince  him  that  these  con- 
ceptions were  without  foundation  in  fact.  At  many 
periods   in   human    history  also,   he   would   have  to 


iv      THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN   HISTORY     99 

observe  that  the  opinion  had  been  entertained  by 
considerable  numbers  of  persons,  that  a  point  had  at 
length  been  reached,  at  which  it  was  only  a  question 
of  time,  until  human  reason  finally  dispelled  the  be- 
lief in  those  unseen  powers  which  man  held  in  control 
over  himself.  But  he  would  find  this  anticipation 
never  realised.  Dislodged  from  one  position,  the 
human  mind,  he  would  observe,  had  only  taken  up 
another  of  the  same  kind  which  it  continued  once 
more  to  hold  with  the  same  unreasoning,  dogged,  and 
desperate  persistence. 

Strangest  sight  of  all,  the  observer,  while  he  would 
find  man  in  every  other  department  of  life  continually 
extolling  his  reason,  regarding  it  as  his  highest  pos- 
session, and  triumphantly  revelling  in  the  sense  of 
power  with  which  it  equipped  him,  would  here  see 
him  counting  as  his  bitterest  enemies  worthy  of  the 
severest  punishment,  and  the  most  persistent  perse- 
cution, all  who  suggested  to  him  that  he  should,  in 
these  matters,  walk  according  to  its  light.  He  would 
find  that  the  whole  department  of  speculative  and 
philosophical  thought  which  represented  the  highest 
intellectual  work  of  the  race  for  an  immense  period, 
furnished  an  extraordinary  spectacle.  It  would  pre- 
sent the  appearance  of  a  territory,  along  whose  fron- 
tiers had  been  waged,  without  intermission,  a  war, 
deadly  and  desolating  as  any  the  imagination  could 
conceive.  Even  the  imperfect  descriptions  of  this 
conflict  from  time  to  time  by  some  of  the  minds 
which  had  taken  part  on  one  side  in  it  would  be  very 
striking.  "  I  know  of  no  study,"  says  Professor  Hux- 
ley, "  which  is  so  unutterably  saddening  as  that  of 
the  evolution  of  humanity  as  it  is  set  forth  in  the 


100  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

annals  of  history.  Out  of  the  darkness  of  prehistoric 
ages,  man  emerges  with  the  marks  of  his  lowly  origin 
strong  upon  him.  He  is  a  brute,  only  more  intelligent 
than  other  brutes ;  a  blind  prey  to  impulses,  which  as 
often  as  not  lead  him  to  destruction ;  a  victim  to  end- 
less illusions  which  make  his  mental  existence  a  terror 
and  a  burthen,  and  fill  his  physical  life  with  barren 
toil  and  battle.  He  attains  a  certain  degree  of  com- 
fort, and  develops  a  more  or  less  workable  theory  of 
life  in  such  favourable  situations  as  the  plains  of 
Mesopotamia,  or  of  Egypt,  and  then  for  thousands 
and  thousands  of  years,  struggles  with  varying  for- 
tunes, attended  by  infinite  wickedness,  bloodshed,  and 
misery,  to  maintain  himself  at  this  point  against  the 
greed  and  the  ambition  of  his  fellow-men.  He  makes 
a  point  of  killing  and  otherwise  persecuting  all  those 
who  first  try  to  get  him  to  move  on  ;  and  when  he 
has  moved  a  step  farther,  foolishly  confers  post-mor- 
tem deification  on  his  victims.  He  exactly  repeats 
the  process  with  all  who  want  to  move  a  step  yet 
farther."  2  This  territory  of  the  intellect  would,  in 
fact,  present  all  the  appearances  of  a  battle-field, 
stained  with  the  blood  of  many  victims,  singed  with 
the  flames  of  martyrdom,  and  eloquent  of  every  form 
of  terror  and  punishment  that  human  ingenuity  had 
been  able  to  devise. 

And  he  would  notice,  as  many  of  those  who  fought 
in  the  ranks  did  not,  the  note  of  failure  which  re- 
sounded through  all  that  region  of  higher  human 
thought  which  we  call  philosophy,  the  profound  air  of 
more  or  less  unconscious  melancholy  which  sat  upon 
many  of  the  more  far-seeing  champions  on  the  side 

1 "  Agnosticism,"  Nineteenth  Century \  February  1889. 


iv     THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF   HUMAN   HISTORY     101 

of  human  reason,  and  the  —  at  times  scarcely  concealed 
—  sense  of  hopelessness  of  any  decisive  triumph  for 
their  cause  displayed  by  some  of  these  champions, 
even  while  their  followers  of  less  insight  were  ever 
and  anon  hailing  all  the  signs  of  final  victory. 

There  is  not,  it  is  believed,  anything  which  is 
unreal  or  exaggerated  in  this  view  of  one  of  the  chief 
phases  of  human  evolution.  The  aim  has  been  to  look 
at  the  facts  just  as  they  might  be  expected  to  present 
themselves  to  an  observer  who  could  thus  regard 
them  from  the  outside,  and  with  a  mind  quite  free 
from  all  prepossession.  He  would  be  able  to  perceive 
the  real  proportions  of  this  stupendous  conflict ;  he 
would  be  able  to  see  that  both  sides  regarded  it 
from  merely  a  partisan  standpoint,  neither  of  them 
possessing  any  true  perception  of  its  nature  or  dimen- 
sions, or  of  its  relationship  to  the  development  the 
race  is  undergoing.  If  it  is  profitless  for  science  to 
approach  the  examination  of  religious  phenomena 
from  the  direction  in  which  it  is  usually  approached  by 
a  large  class  of  religious  writers,  it  is  also  apparently 
none  the  less  idle  and  foolish  to  attempt  to  dismiss 
the  whole  subject  as  if  it  merely  furnished  an  exhibi- 
tion of  some  perverse  and  meaningless  folly  and  fury 
in  man.  Many  of  the  ideas  concerning  the  origin  of 
religions,  insists  De  La  Saussaye  truly,  need  only  to 
be  mentioned  to  have  their  insufficiency  realised. 
"  Such  is,  for  instance,  that  formerly  popular  explana- 
tion which  regarded  religion  as  a  human  discovery 
sprung  from  the  cunning  deception  of  priests  and 
rulers.  Another  opinion  not  less  insipid,  though  at 
present  sometimes  regarded  as  the  highest  phi- 
losophy, is  that  which  declares  religion  to  be  a  mad- 


102  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

ness,  a  pathological  phenomenon  closely  allied  with 
neurosis  and  hysteria." *  The  phenomena  in  question 
are  on  such  a  gigantic  scale,  and  the  instinct  which 
finds  an  expression  therein  is  so  general,  so  persistent, 
and  so  deep-seated,  that  they  cannot  be  lightly  passed 
over  in  this  way.  In  the  eyes  of  the  evolutionist 
they  must  have  some  meaning,  they  must  be  asso- 
ciated with  some  wide-reaching  law  of  our  social 
development  as  yet  unenunciated. 

The  one  fact  which  stands  out  clear  above  it  all  is 
that  the  forces  against  which  man  is  engaged  through- 
out the  whole  course  of  the  resulting  struggle  are 
none  other  than  those  enlisted  against  him  by  his 
reason.  As  in  Calderon's  tragic  story  the  unknown 
figure  which,  throughout  life,  is  everywhere  in  con- 
flict with  the  individual  whom  it  haunts,  lifts  the 
mask  at  last  to  disclose  to  the  opponent  his  own 
features,  so  here  underneath  these  religious  phe- 
nomena we  see  man  throughout  his  career  engaged 
in  a  remorseless  and  relentless  struggle  in  which 
the  opponent  proves  to  be  none  other  than  his  own 
reason.  Throughout  all  the  centuries  in  which  his- 
tory has  him  in  view  we  witness  him  driven  by  a 
profound  instinct  which  finds  expression  in  his  relig- 
ions unmistakably  recognising  a  hostile  force  of  some 
kind  in  his  own  reason.2 

1  Manual  of  the  Science  of  Religion,  by  P.  D.  C.  De  La  Saussaye, 
translated  from  the  German  by  B.  S.  Colyer-Fergusson,  1891. 

2  It  is  a  remarkable  and  interesting  fact  that  the  two  sides  in  this 
conflict,  even  under  all  the  forms  and  freedom  of  modern  life  where  the 
fullest  scope  is  allowed  for  every  kind  of  inquiry,  still  seem  to  recognise 
each  other  intuitively  as  opponents.  Mr.  Galton,  as  the  result  of  his 
inquiries  into  the  personal  and  family  history  of  scientific  men  in  Eng- 
land, says  that  it  is  a  fact  that,  in  proportion  to  the  pains  bestowed  on 


iv      THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF   HUMAN   HISTORY     103 

This  is  the  spectacle  which  demands  our  atten- 
tion. This  is  the  conflict  the  significance  of  which 
in  human  evolution  it  is  necessary  to  bring  out  into 
the  fullest  and  clearest  light.  It  is  a  conflict,  the 
meaning  of  which  has  been  buried  for  over  two  thou- 
sand years  under  the  fierce  controversy  (not  less  par- 
tisan and  unscientific  on  the  one  side  than  on  the 
other)  which  has  been  waged  over  it.  Goethe  was 
not  speaking  with  a  poet's  exaggeration,  but  with  a 
scientific  insight  in  advance  of  his  time,  when  he 
asserted  of  it,  that  it  is  "the  deepest,  nay,  the  one 
theme  of  the  world's  history  to  which  all  others  are 
subordinate."  x 

their  education,  sons  of  clergymen  rarely  take  the  lead  in  science.  The 
pursuit  of  science  he  considers  must  be  uncongenial  to  the  priestly  char- 
acter. He  says  that  in  his  own  experience  of  the  councils  of  scientific 
societies  it  is  very  rare  to  find  clergymen  thereon.  Out  of  660  separate 
appointments  clergymen  held  only  sixteen,  or  one  in  forty,  and  these 
were  in  nearly  every  case  attached  to  subdivisions  of  science  with  fewest 
salient  points  to  jar  against  dogma.  — English  Men  of  Science,  their 
Nature  and  Nurture,  by  F.  Galton. 

1  Vide  The  Social  Philosophy  and  Religion  of  Cotnte,  by  E.  Caird, 
LL.D.,  p.  160. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE    FUNCTION    OF     RELIGIOUS     BELIEFS     IN     THE 
EVOLUTION    OF    SOCIETY 

Since  science  first  seriously  directed  her  attention 
to  the  study  of  social  phenomena,  the  interest  of 
workers  has  been  arrested  by  the  striking  resem- 
blances between  the  life  of  society  and  that  of  or- 
ganic growths  in  general.  We  have,  accordingly,  had 
many  elaborate  parallels  drawn  by  various  scientific 
writers  between  the  two,  and  "the  social  organism" 
has  become  a  familiar  expression  in  a  certain  class  of 
literature.  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  these 
comparisons  have  been,  so  far,  neither  as  fruitful  nor 
as  suggestive  as  might  naturally  have  been  expected. 
The  generalisations  and  abstractions  to  which  they 
have  led,  even  in  the  hands  of  so  original  a  thinker 
as  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  are  often,  it  must  be  ac- 
knowledged, forced  and  unsatisfactory ;  and  it  may 
be  fairly  said  that  a  field  of  inquiry  which  looked  at 
the  outset  in  the  highest  degree  promising  has,  on 
the  whole,  proved  disappointing. 

Yet  that  there  is  some  analogy  between  the  social 
life  and  organic  life  in  general,  history  and  experi- 
ence most  undoubtedly  suggest.  The  pages  of  the 
historian  seem  to  be  filled  with  pictures  of  organic 
life,  over  the  moving  details  of  which  the  biologist 
instinctively  lingers.     We  see  social  systems  born  in 

104 


chap,  v    THE  FUNCTION  OF   RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  105 

silence   and  obscurity.     They  develop   beneath   our 
eyes.     They  make  progress  until  they  exhibit  a  cer- 
tain maximum  vitality.     They  gradually  decline,  and 
finally   disappear,    having  presented   in   the   various 
stages  certain  well-marked  phases  which  invariably 
accompany  the  development  and  dissolution    of  or- 
ganic   life   wheresoever    encountered.       It    may   be 
observed  too  that  this  idea  of  the  life,  growth,  and 
decline   of  peoples  is   deeply  rooted.     It  is  always 
present  in  the  mind  of  the  historian.     It  is  to   be 
met   with    continually   in   general    literature.      The 
popular  imagination  is  affected  by  it.     It  finds  con- 
stant expression  in  the  utterances  of  public  speakers 
and  of  writers  in  the  daily  press,  who,  ever  and  anon, 
remind  us  that  our  national  life,  or,  it  may  be,  the 
life   of   our  civilisation,    must   reach,    if   it  has   not 
already  reached,  its  stage  of  maximum  development, 
and  that  it  must  decline  like  others  which  have  pre- 
ceded it      That  social  systems  are  endowed  with  a 
definite    principle   of    life   seems    to    be   taken   for 
granted.     Yet :  What  is  this  principle  ?     Where  has 
it  its  seat  ?     What  are  the  laws  which  control  the 
development  and  decline  of  those  so-called  organic 
growths  ?     Nay,  more :  What  is  the  social  organism 
itself?     Is  it  the  political  organisation  of  which  we 
form  part  ?     Or  is  it  the  race  to  which  we  belong  ? 
Is  it  our  civilisation  in  general  ?     Or,  is  it,  as  some 
writers  would  seem  to  imply,  the  whole  human  fam- 
ily in  process  of  evolution  ?     It  must  be  confessed 
that  the  literature  of  our  time  furnishes  no  satisfac- 
tory answers  to  a  large   class  of  questions  of  this 
kind. 

It  is  evident  that  if  we  are  ever  to  lay  broadly  and 


106  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

firmly  the  foundations  of  a  science  of  human  society, 
that  there  is  one  point  above  others  at  which  atten- 
tion must  be  concentrated.  The  distinguishing  feat- 
ure of  human  history  is  the  social  development  the 
race  is  undergoing.  But  the  characteristic  and  ex- 
ceptional feature  of  this  development  is  the  relation- 
ship of  the  individual  to  society.  We  have  seen  in 
the  preceding  chapters  that  fundamental  organic  con- 
ditions of  life  render  the  progress  of  the  race  possible 
only  under  conditions  which  have  never  had,  and 
which  have  not  now,  any  sanction  from  the  reason 
of  a  great  proportion  of  the  individuals  who  submit 
to  them.  The  interests  of  the  individual  and  those 
of  the  social  organism,  in  the  evolution  which  is  pro- 
ceeding, are  not  either  identical  or  capable  of  being 
reconciled,  as  has  been  necessarily  assumed  in  all 
those  systems  of  ethics  which  have  sought  to  estab- 
lish a  rational  sanction  for  individual  conduct.  The 
two  are  fundamentally  and  inherently  irreconcilable, 
and  a  large  proportion  of  the  existing  individuals  at 
any  time  have,  as  we  saw,  no  personal  interest  what- 
ever in  this  progress  of  the  race,  or  in  the  social 
development  we  are  undergoing.  Strange  to  say, 
however,  man's  reason,  which  has  apparently  given 
him  power  to  suspend  the  onerous  conditions  to 
which  he  is  subject,  has  never  produced  their  sus- 
pension. His  development  has  continued  with  un- 
abated pace  throughout  history,  and  it  is  in  full 
progress  under  our  eyes. 

The  pregnant  question  with  which  we  found  our- 
selves confronted  was,  therefore :  What  has  then  be- 
come of  human  reason  ?  It  would  appear  that  the 
answer  has,  in  effect,  been  given.    The  central  feature 


v  THE  FUNCTION   OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  107 

of  human  history,  the  meaning  of  which  neither  sci- 
ence nor  philosophy  has  hitherto  fully  recognised,  is, 
apparently,  the  struggle  which  man,  throughout  the 
whole  period  of  his  social  development,  has  carried 
on  to  effect  the  subordination  of  his  own  reason. 
The  motive  power  in  this  struggle  has  undoubtedly 
been  supplied  by  his  religious  beliefs.  The  conclu- 
sion towards  which  we  seem  to  be  carried  is,  therefore, 
that  the  function  of  these  beliefs  in  human  evolution 
must  be  to  provide  a  super- rational  sanction  for  that 
large  class  of  conduct  in  the  individual,  necessary  to 
the  maintenance  of  the  development  which  is  pro- 
ceeding, but  for  which  there  can  never  be,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  any  rational  sanction. 

The  fact  has  been  already  noticed  that  evolutionary 
science  is  likely  in  our  day  to  justify,  as  against  the 
teaching  of  past  schools  of  thought,  one  of  the  deep- 
est and  most  characteristic  of  social  instincts,  viz., 
that  which  has  consistently  held  the  theories  of  that 
large  group  of  philosophical  writers  who  have  aimed 
at  establishing  a  rational  sanction  for  individual  con- 
duct in  society  —  a  school  which  may  be  said  to  have 
culminated  in  England  in  "utilitarianism"  —  as  being 
on  the  whole  (to  quote  the  words  of  Mr.  Lecky)  "  pro- 
foundly immoral."  '  It  would  appear  that  science 
must  in  the  end  also  justify  another  instinct  equally 
general,  and  also  in  direct  opposition  to  a  widely 
prevalent  intellectual  conception  which  is  character- 
istic of  our  time. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  more  particularly  since  Comte  published  his 
PhilosopJde  Positive,  an  increasingly  large  number  of 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  pp.  2,  3. 


108  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

minds  in  France,  Germany,  and  England  (not  neces- 
sarily, or  even  chiefly,  those  adhering  to  Comte's 
general  views)  have  questioned  the  essentiality  of 
the  supernatural  element  in  religious  beliefs.  In 
England  a  large  literature  has  gradually  arisen  on 
the  subject ;  and  the  vogue  of  books  like  Natural 
Religion,  attributed  to  Professor  J.  R.  Seeley,  and 
others  in  which  the  subject  has  been  approached 
from  different  standpoints,  has  testified  to  the 
interest  which  this  view  has  excited.  A  large 
and  growing  intellectual  party  in  our  midst  hold,  in 
fact,  the  belief  that  the  religion  of  the  future  must 
be  one  from  which  the  super-rational  element  is  elimi- 
nated. 

Now,  if  we  have  been  right  so  far,  it  would  appear 
that  one  of  the  first  results  of  the  application  of 
the  methods  and  conclusions  of  biological  science  to 
human  society  must  be  to  render  it  clear  that  the 
advocates  of  these  views,  like  the  adherents  of  that 
larger  school  of  thought  which  has  sought  to  find  a 
rational  basis  for  individual  conduct  in  society,  are  in 
pursuit  of  something  which  can  never  exist.  There 
can  never  be,  it  would  appear,  such  a  thing  as  a 
rational  religion.  The  essential  element  in  all  religious 
beliefs  must  apparently  be  the  ultra-rational  sanction 
which  they  provide  for  social  conduct.  When  the 
fundamental  nature  of  the  problem  involved  in  our 
social  evolution  is  understood,  it  must  become  clear 
that  that  general  instinct  which  may  be  distinguished 
in  the  minds  of  men  around  us  is  in  the  main  correct, 
and  that  :  — 

No  form  of  belief  is  capable  of  functioning  as  a 
religion  in  the  evolution  of  society  which  does  not  pro- 


v  THE  FUNCTION   OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  109 

vide  an  ultra  -  rational  sanction  for  social  conduct  in 
the  individual. 

In  other  words  :  — 

A  rational  religion  is  a  scientific  impossibility -, 
representing  from  the  nature  of  the  case  an  inherent 
contradiction  of  terms. 

The  significance  of  this  conclusion  will  become 
evident  as  we  proceed.  It  opens  up  a  new  and 
almost  unexplored  territory.  We  come,  it  would 
appear,  in  sight  of  the  explanation  why  science,  if 
social  systems  are  organic  growths,  has  hitherto 
failed  to  enunciate  the  laws  of  their  development, 
and  has  accordingly  left  us  almost  entirely  in  the 
dark  as  to  the  nature  of  the  developmental  forces 
and  tendencies  at  work  beneath  the  varied  and  com- 
plex political  and  social  phenomena  of  our  time. 
The  social  system  which  constitutes  an  organic 
growth,  endowed  with  a  definite  principle  of  life, 
and  unfolding  itself  in  obedience  to  laws  which  may 
be  made  the  subject  of  exact  study,  is  something 
quite  different  from  that*  we  have  hitherto  had 
vaguely  in  mind.  It  is  not  the  political  organisation 
of  which  we  form  part ;  it  is  not  the  race  to  which 
we  belong ;  it  is  not  even  the  whole  human  family  in 
process  of  evolution.  The  organic  growth,  it  would 
appear,  must  be  the  social  system  or  type  of  civilisa- 
tion founded  on  a  form  of  religious  belief.  This  is 
the  organism  which  is  the  seat  of  a  definite  principle 
of  life.  Throughout  its  existence  there  is  maintained 
within  it  a  conflict  of  two  opposing  forces ;  the  disin- 
tegrating principle  represented  by  the  rational  self- 
assertiveness  of  the  individual  units;  the  integrating 
principle  represented  by  a  religious  belief  providing 


110  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

a  sanction  for  social  conduct  which  is  always  of  neces- 
sity ultra-rational,  and  the  function  of  which  is  to 
secure  in  the  stress  of  evolution  the  continual  subor- 
dination of  the  interests  of  the  individual  units  to  the 
larger  interests  of  the  longer-lived  social  organism  to 
which  they  belong.  It  is,  it  would  appear,  primarily 
through  these  social  systems  that  natural  selection 
must  reach  and  act  upon  the  race.  It  is  from  the 
ethical  systems  upon  which  they  are  founded  that 
the  resulting  types  of  civilisation  receive  those  spe- 
cific characteristics  which,  in  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence, influence  in  a  preponderating  degree  the 
peoples  affected  by  them.  It  is  in  these  ethical 
systems,  founded  on  super-rational  sanctions,  and 
in  the  developments  which  they  undergo,  that  we 
have  the  seat  of  a  vast  series  of  vital  phenomena 
unfolding  themselves  under  the  control  of  definite 
laws  which  may  be  made  the  subject  of  study.  The 
scientific  investigation  of  these  phenomena  is  capable, 
as  we  shall  see,  of  throwing  a  flood  of  light  not  only 
upon  the  life-history  of  our  Western  civilisation 
in  general,  but  upon  the  nature  of  the  develop- 
mental forces  underlying  the  complex  social  and 
political  movements  actually  in  progress  in  the  world 
around  us. 

But  before  following  up  this  line  of  inquiry,  let  us 
see  if  the  conclusion  to  which  we  have  been  led  re- 
specting the  nature  of  the  element  common  to  all 
religious  beliefs  can  be  justified  when  it  is  confronted 
with  actual  facts.  Are  we  thus,  it  may  be  asked, 
able  to  unearth  from  beneath  the  enormous  over- 
growth of  discussion  and  controversy  to  which  this 
subject  has  given  rise,  the  essential  element  in  all 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  111 

religions,  and  to  lay  down  a  simple,  but  clear  and 
concise  principle  upon  which  science  may  in  future 
proceed  in  dealing  with  the  religious  phenomena  of 
mankind  ? 

It  is  evident,  from  what  has  been  said,  that  our 
definition  of  a  religion,  in  the  sense  in  which  alone 
science  is  concerned  with  religion  as  a  social  phenom- 
enon, must  run  somewhat  as  follows  :  — 

A  religion  is  a  form  of  belief  providing  an  ultra- 
rational  sanction  for  that  large  class  of  conduct  in  the 
individual  where  his  interests  and  the  interests  of 
the  social  organism  are  antagonistic,  and  by  which  the 
former  are  rendered  subordinate  to  the  latter  in  the 
general  interests  of  the  evolution  which  the  race  is 
undergoing. 

We  have  here  the  principle  at  the  base  of  all  relig- 
ions. Any  religion  is,  of  course,  more  than  this  to 
its  adherents  ;  for  it  must  necessarily  maintain  itself 
by  what  is  often  a  vast  system  of  beliefs  and  ordi- 
nances requiring  acts  and  observances  which  only  in- 
directly contribute  to  the  end  in  question,  by  assisting 
to  uphold  the  principles  of  the  religion.  It  is  these 
which  tend  to  confuse  the  minds  of  many  observers. 
With  them  we  are  not  here  concerned ;  they  more 
properly  fall  under  the  head  of  theo]ogy. 

Let  us  see,  therefore,  if  this  element  of  a  super- 
rational  sanction  for  conduct  has  been  the  character- 
istic feature  of  all  religions,  from  those  which  have 
influenced  men  in  a  state  of  low  social  development 
up  to  those  which  now  play  so  large  a  part  in  the 
life  of  highly-civilised  peoples ;  whether,  despite 
recent  theories  to  the  contrary,  there  is  to  be  dis- 
cerned no  tendency  in  those  beliefs  which  are  obvi- 


112  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

ously  still  influencing  large  numbers  of  persons  to 
eliminate  it. 

Beginning  with  man  at  the  lowest  stage  at  which 
his  habits  have  been  made  a  subject  of  study,  we  are 
met  by  a  curious  and  conflicting  mass  of  evidence 
respecting  his  religious  beliefs.  The  writers  and  ob- 
servers whose  opinions  have  been  recorded  are  innu- 
merable ;  but  they  may  be  said  to  be  divided  into  two 
camps  on  a  fundamental  point  under  discussion.  In 
no  stage  of  his  development,  in  no  society,  and  in  no 
condition  of  society,  is  man  found  without  religion  of 
some  sort,  say  one  side.  Whole  societies  of  men  and 
entire  nations  have  existed  without  anything  which 
can  be  described  as  a  religion,  say  the  other  side.  In 
one  of  the  Gifford  Lectures,  Mr.  Max-Miiller  well  de- 
scribes the  confusion  existing  among  those  who  have 
undertaken  to  inform  us  on  the  subject.  "  Some  mis- 
sionaries," he  says,  "find  no  trace  of  religion  where 
anthropologists  see  the  place  swarming  with  ghosts 
and  totems  and  fetishes  ;  while  other  missionaries 
discover  deep  religious  feelings  in  savages  whom  an- 
thropologists declare  perfectly  incapable  of  anything 
beyond  the  most  primitive  sensuous  perception." 1 
He  goes  on  to  show  how  these  two  parties  occasion- 
ally change  sides.  "  When  the  missionary,"  he  de- 
clares, "  wants  to  prove  that  no  human  being  can  be 
without  some  spark  of  religion,  he  sees  religion  every- 
where, even  in  what  is  called  totemism  and  fetishism  ; 
while  if  he  wants  to  show  how  necessary  it  is  to  teach 
and  convert  these  irreligious  races  he  cannot  paint 
their  abject  state  in  too  strong  colours,  and  he  is  apt 
to  treat  even  their  belief  in  an  invisible  and  nameless 

1  Natural  Religion  (Gifford  Lectures),  p.  85. 


v  THE   FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  113 

God  as  mere  hallucination.  Nor  is  the  anthropologist 
free  from  such  temptations.  If  he  wants  to  prove 
that,  like  the  child,  every  race  of  men  was  at  one 
time  atheistic,  then  neither  totems,  nor  fetishes,  nor 
even  prayers  or  sacrifices  are  any  proof  in  his  eyes  of 
an  ineradicable  religious  instinct."  1 

The  dispute  is  an  old  one,  and  examples  of  the 
differences  of  opinion  and  statement  referred  to  by 
Mr.  Max-Miiller  will  be  found  in  books  like  Sir  John 
Lubbock's  Origin  of  Civilisation  and  Prehistoric 
Times,  Tylor's  Primitive  Culture  and  Researches  into 
the  Early  History  of  Mankind,  Quatrefages'  U Espece 
Humaine,  and  the  more  recent  writings  of  Roskoff, 
Professor  Gruppe,  and  others.  In  the  considerable 
number  of  works  which  continually  issue  from  the 
press,  dealing  with  the  habits  and  beliefs  of  the  lower 
races  of  men,  this  feature  is  very  marked.  A  recent 
criticism  of  one  of  these  (Mr.  H.  L.  Roth's  Aborigines 
of  Tasmania)  in  Nature  concludes  :  "  Such  is  the 
nature  of  the  evidence  bearing  on  the  religious  ideas 
of  the  Tasmanians,  which  Mr.  Roth  has  collected  so 
carefully  and  so  conscientiously.  Nothing  can  be 
more  full  of  contradictions,  more  doubtful,  more  per- 
plexing. Yet,  with  such  materials,  our  best  anthro- 
pologists and  sociologists  have  built  up  their  systems. 
.  .  .  There  is  hardly  any  kind  of  religion  which 
could  not  be  proved  to  have  been  the  original  religion 
of  the  Tasmanians."  And  it  is  even  added  that  the 
evidence  would  serve  equally  well  to  show  that  the 
Tasmanians  were  "without  any  religious  ideas  or 
ceremonial  usages."2     Underlying  all  this,  there  is, 

1  Natural  Religion  (Gifford  Lectures),  p.  87. 

2  Vide  Nature,  18th  September  1890. 


114  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

evidently,  a  state  of  chaos  as  regards  general  prin- 
ciples. Different  writers  and  observers,  when  they 
speak  of  the  religion  of  lower  races  of  men,  do  not 
refer  to  the  same  thing ;  they  have  themselves  often 
no  clear  conception  of  what  they  mean  by  the  expres- 
sion. They  do  not  know,  in  short,  what  to  look  for 
as  the  essential  element  in  a  religion. 

Now,  there  is  one  universal  and  noteworthy  feature 
of  the  life  of  primitive  man  which  a  comparative 
study  of  his  habits  has  revealed.  "  No  savage,"  says 
Sir  John  Lubbock,  "  is  free.  All  over  the  world  his 
daily  life  is  regulated  by  a  complicated  and  appar- 
ently most  inconvenient  set  of  customs  as  forcible  as 
laws."  *  We  are  now  beginning  to  understand  that 
it  is  these  customs  of  savage  man,  strange  and  extraor- 
dinary as  they  appear  to  us,  that  in  great  measure 
take  the  place  of  the  legal  and  moral  codes  which 
serve  to  hold  society  together  and  contribute  to  its 
further  development  in  our  advanced  civilisations. 
The  whole  tendency  of  recent  anthropological  science 
is  to  establish  the  conclusion  that  these  habits  and 
customs,  "as  forcible  as  laws,"  either  have  or  had, 
directly  or  indirectly,  a  utilitarian  function  to  perform 
in  the  societies  in  which  they  exist.  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  and  others  have  already  traced  in  many 
cases  the  important  influence  in  the  evolution  of 
early  society  of  those  customs,  habits,  and  ceremonies 
of  savage  man  which  at  first  sight  often  appear  so 
meaningless  and  foolish  to  us  ;  and  though  this  de- 
partment of  science  is  still  young,  there  is  no  doubt 
as  to  the  direction  in  which  current  research  therein 
is  leading  us. 

1  Origin  of  Civilisation^  p.  301. 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF   RELIGIOUS   BELIEFS  115 

But  if,  on  the  one  hand,  we  find  primitive  man 
thus  everywhere  under  the  sway  of  customs  which 
we  are  to  regard  as  none  other  than  the  equivalent 
of  the  legal  and  moral  codes  of  higher  societies ;  and 
if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  find  these  customs  every- 
where as  forcible  as  laws,  how,  it  may  be  asked,  are 
those  unwritten  laws  of  savage  society  enforced? 
The  answer  comes  prompt  and  without  qualification. 
They  are  everywhere  enforced  in  one  and  the  same 
way.  Observance  of  them  is  invariably  secured  by 
the  fear  of  consequences  from  an  agent  which  is 
always  supernatural.  This  agent  may,  and  does, 
assume  a  variety  of  forms,  but  one  characteristic  it 
never  loses.  It  is  always  supernatural.  We  have 
here  the  explanation  of  the  conflict  of  opinions  re- 
garding the  religions  of  primitive  man.  Some  writ- 
ers assume  that  he  is  without  religion  because  he 
is  without  a  belief  in  a  Deity.  Others  because  his 
Deities  are  all  evil.  But,  if  we  are  right  so  far,  it  is 
not  necessarily  a  belief  in  a  Deity,  or  in  Deities 
which  are  not  evil,  that  we  must  look  for  as  consti- 
tuting the  essential  element  in  the  religions  of  prim- 
itive men.  The  one  essential  and  invariable  feature 
must  be  a  supernatural  sanction  of  some  kind  for 
acts  and  observances  which  have  a  social  significance. 
This  sanction  we  appear  always  to  have.  We  are 
never  without  the  supernatural  in  some  form.  The 
essential  fact  which  underlies  all  the  prolonged  and 
complicated  controversy  which  has  been  waged  over 
this  subject  was  once  put,  with  perhaps  more  force 
than  reverence,  by  Professor  Huxley  into  a  single  sen- 
tence. "  There  are  savages  without  God  in  any  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  but  there  are  none  without  ghosts," x 

1  Lay  Sermons  and  Addresses,  p.  163. 


116  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

said  he  ;  and  the  generalisation,  however  it  may  have 
been  intended,  expresses  in  effective  form  the  one 
fundamental  truth  in  the  discussion  with  which  sci- 
ence is  concerned.  It  is  the  supernatural  agents,  the 
deities,  spirits,  ghosts,  with  which  primitive  man  peo- 
ples the  air,  water,  rocks,  trees,  his  dwellings  and  his 
implements,  which  everywhere  provide  the  ultimate 
sanction  used  to  enforce  conduct  which  has  a  social 
significance  of  the  kind  in  question.  Whatever  qual- 
ities these  agents  may  be  supposed  to  possess  or  to 
lack,  one  attribute  they  always  have ;  they  are  inva- 
riably supernatural. 

When  we  leave  savage  man,  and  rise  a  step  higher 
to  those  societies  which  have  made  some  progress 
towards  civilisation,  we  find  the  prevailing  religions 
still  everywhere  possessing  the  same  distinctive  feat- 
ures ;  they  are  always  associated  with  social  conduct, 
and  they  continue  to  be  invariably  founded  on  a  belief 
in  the  supernatural.  In  the  religion  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians,  we  encounter  this  element  at  every  point. 
Professor  Tiele  says  that  the  two  things  which  were 
specially  characteristic  of  it,  were  the  worship  of  ani- 
mals and  the  worship  of  the  dead.  The  worship  of 
the  dead  took  the  foremost  place.  "  The  animals  wor- 
shipped —  originally  nothing  but  fetishes,  which  they 
continued  to  be  for  the  great  majority  of  the  worship- 
pers— were  brought  by  the  doctrinal  expositions,  and 
by  the  educated  classes,  into  connection  with  certain 
particular  Gods,  and  thus  came  to  be  regarded  as  the 
terrestrial  incarnation  of  these  Gods."  The  belief  in 
the  supernatural  was  the  characteristic  feature  of  the 
religion  of  the  ancient  Chinese,  and  this  element  has 
survived  unchanged   in   it,  through  all  the  develop- 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF   RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  117 

ments  it  has  undergone  down  to  our  own  day,  as 
well  as  in  the  other  forms  of  religious  belief  which 
influence  the  millions  of  the  Celestial  empire  at  the 
present  time.  The  religion  of  the  ancient  Assyrians 
presents  the  same  essential  features.  It  was  a  poly- 
theism with  a  large  number  of  deities  who  were  ob- 
jects of  adoration.  We  already  find  in  it  some  idea 
of  a  future  life,  and  of  rewards  and  punishments 
therein,  the  latter  varying  according  to  different  de- 
grees of  wickedness  in  this  life. 

In  the  religions  of  the  early  Greeks  and  Romans, 
representing  the  forms  of  belief  prevalent  amongst 
peoples  who  eventually  attained  to  the  highest  state 
of  civilisation  anterior  to  our  own,  we  have  features 
of  peculiar  interest.  The  religion  of  the  prehistoric 
ancestors  of  both  peoples  was  in  all  probability  a  form 
of  ancestor  worship.  The  isolated  family  ruled  by 
the  head,  with,  as  a  matter  of  course,  absolute  power 
over  the  members,  was  the  original  unit  alike  in  the 
religious  and  political  systems  of  these  peoples.  At 
the  death  of  some  all-powerful  head  of  this  kind,  his 
spirit  was  held  in  awe,  and,  as  generations  went  on, 
the  living  master  of  the  house  found  himself  ruling 
simply  as  the  vicegerent  of  the  man  from  whom  he 
had  inherited  his  authority.  Thus  arose  the  family 
religion  which  was  the  basis  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
systems,  all  outside  the  family  religion  being  regarded 
as  aliens  or  enemies.  As  the  family  expanded  in 
favourable  circumstances  into  a  related  group  (the 
Latin  gens),  and  the  gens  in  turn  into  clans  (phra- 
triari),  and  these  again  into  tribes  (phylai),  an  aggre- 
gate of  which  formed  the  city  state  or  polls,  the 
idea  of  family  relationship   remained  the  character- 


118  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

istic  feature  of  the  religion.  All  the  groups,  includ- 
ing the  polls,  were,  as  Sir  G.  W.  Cox  points  out, 
religious  societies,  and  the  subordinate  fellowships 
were  "  religious  with  an  intensity  scarcely  to  us  con- 
ceivable." In  the  development  which  such  a  system 
underwent  among  the  early  Romans  —  a  system  hard, 
cruel,  and  unpitying,  which  necessarily  led  to  the 
treatment  of  all  outsiders  as  enemies  or  aliens  fit  only 
to  be  made  slaves  of  or  tributaries  —  we  had  the 
necessary  religion  for  the  people  who  eventually  made 
themselves  masters  of  the  world,  and  in  whom  the 
military  type  of  society  ultimately  culminated. 

But  if  it  is  asked,  what  the  sanction  was  behind  the 
religious  requirements  of  these  social  groups,  "  relig- 
ious with  an  intensity  scarcely  to  us  conceivable," 
the  answer  is  still  the  same.  There  is  no  qualifi- 
cation. It  is  still  invariably  supernatural,  using  this 
term  in  the  sense  of  ultra-rational.  The  conception 
of  the  supernatural  has  become  a  higher  one  than 
that  which  prevailed  amongst  primitive  men,  and  the 
development  in  this  direction  may  be  distinguished 
actually  in  progress,  but  the  belief  in  this  sanction 
survives  in  all  its  force.  The  religions  of  ancient 
Greece  and  Rome  at  the  period  of  their  highest  influ- 
ence drew  their  strength  everywhere  from  the  belief 
in  the  supernatural,  and  it  has  to  be  observed  that 
their  decay  dated  from,  and  progressed  pari  passu 
with,  the  decay  of  this  belief.  The  Roman  religion 
which  so  profoundly  influenced  the  development  of 
Roman  civilisation  derived  its  influence  throughout 
its  history  from  the  belief  in  the  minds  of  men  that 
its  rules  and  ordinances  had  a  supernatural  origin. 
Summarising  its  characteristics  Mr.  Lecky  says  :  "  It 


v  THE   FUNCTION   OF   RELIGIOUS   BELIEFS  119 

gave  a  kind  of  official  consecration  to  certain  virtues 
and  commemorated  special  instances  in  which  they 
had  been  displayed  ;  its  local  character  strengthened 
patriotic  feeling,  its  worship  of  the  dead  fostered  a 
vague  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  it  sus- 
tained the  supremacy  of  the  father  in  the  family, 
surrounded  marriage  with  many  imposing  ceremonies, 
and  created  simple  and  reverent  characters  profoundly 
submissive  to  an  overruling  Providence  and  scrupu- 
lously observant  of  sacred  rites."  *  A  belief  in  the 
supernatural  was  in  fact  everywhere  present,  and  it 
constituted  the  essential  element  of  strength  in  the 
Roman  religion. 

If  we  turn  again  to  Mohammedanism  and  Buddh- 
ism, forms  of  belief  influencing  large  numbers  of 
men  at  the  present  day  outside  our  own  civilisation, 
we  still  find  these  essential  features.  The  same  sanc- 
tion for  conduct  is  always  present.  The  essence  of 
Buddhist  morality  Mr.  Max-Miiller  states  to  be  a  belief 
in  Karma,  that  is,  of  work  done  in  this  or  a  former  life 
which  must  go  on  producing  effects.  "  We  are  born 
as  what  we  deserve  to  be  born  ;  we  are  paying  our 
penalty  or  receiving  our  reward  in  this  life  for  former 
acts.  This  makes  the  sufferer  more  patient ;  for  he 
feels  that  he  is  wiping  out  an  old  debt ;  while  the 
happy  man  knows  that  he  is  living  on  the  interest  of 
his  capital  of  good  works,  and  that  he  must  try  to  lay 
by  more  capital  for  a  future  life."2  We  have  only  to 
look  for  a  moment  to  see  that  we  have  in  this  the 
same  ultra-rational  sanction  for  conduct.  There  is 
and  can  be  no  proof  of  such  a  theory ;  on  the  con- 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  pp.  176,  177, 

2  Natural  Religion,  p.  112. 


120  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

trary,  it  assumes  a  cause  operating  in  a  manner  alto- 
gether beyond  the  tests  of  reason  and  experience. 

We  may  survey  the  whole  field  of  man's  religions 
in  societies  both  anterior  to,  and  contemporaneous 
with  our  modern  civilisation,  and  we  shall  find  that 
all  religious  beliefs  possess  these  characteristic  feat- 
ures. There  is  no  exception.  Everywhere  these 
beliefs  are  associated  with  conduct,  having  a  social 
significance ;  and  everywhere  the  ultimate  sanction 
which  they  provide  for  the  conduct  which  they  pre- 
scribe is  a  super-rational  one. 

Coming  at  last  to  the  advanced  societies  of  the 
present  day,  we  are  met  by  a  condition  of  things  of 
great  interest.  The  facts  which  appeared  so  confus- 
ing in  the  last  chapter  now  fall  into  place  with  strik- 
ing regularity.  The  observer  remarks  at  the  outset 
that  there  exist  now,  as  at  other  times  in  the  world's 
history,  forms  of  belief  intended  to  regulate  conduct 
in  which  a  super-rational  sanction  has  no  place.  But, 
with  no  want  of  respect  for  the  persons  who  hold 
these  views,  he  finds  himself  compelled  to  immedi- 
ately place  such  beliefs  on  one  side.  None  of  them, 
he  notes,  has  proved  itself  to  be  a  religion ;  none  of 
them  can  so  far  claim  to  have  influenced  and  moved 
large  masses  of  men  in  the  manner  of  a  religion.  He 
can  find  no  exception  to  this  rule.  If  he  desired  to 
accept  any  one  of  them  as  a  religion  he  notes  that  he 
would  be  constrained  to  do  so  merely  on  the  ipse 
dixit  of  the  small  group  of  persons  who  chose  so  to 
describe  it. 

When  we  turn,  however,  to  these  forms  of  belief 
which  are  unquestionably  influencing  men  in  the 
manner  of  a  religion,  we  have  to  mark  that  they  have 


v  THE   FUNCTION   OF   RELIGIOUS   BELIEFS  121 

one  pronounced  and  universal  characteristic.  The 
sanction  they  offer  for  the  conduct  they  prescribe  is 
unmistakably  a  super-rational  one.  We  may  regard 
the  whole  expanse  of  our  modern  civilisation  and  we 
shall  have  to  note  that  there  is  no  exception  to  this 
rule.  Nay,  more,  we  shall  have  to  acknowledge,  if  we 
keep  our  minds  free  from  confusion,  that  there  is  no 
tendency  whatever  to  eliminate  the  super-rational  ele- 
ment from  religions.  Individuals  may  lose  faith,  may 
withhold  belief,  and  may  found  parties  of  their  own  ; 
but  among  the  religions  themselves  we  shall  find  no 
evidence  of  any  kind  of  movement  or  law  of  develop- 
ment in  this  direction.  On  the  contrary,  however 
these  beliefs  may  differ  from  each  other,  or  from  the 
religions  of  the  past,  they  have  the  one  feature  in 
common  that  they  all  assert  uncompromisingly  that 
the  rules  of  conduct  which  they  enjoin  have  an  ultra- 
rational  sanction,  and  that  right  and  wrong  are  right 
and  wrong  by  divine  or  supernatural  enactment  out- 
side of,  and  independent  of,  any  other  cause  whatever. 
This  is  true  of  every  form  of  religion  that  we  see  in- 
fluencing men  in  the  world  around  us,  from  Buddhism 
to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the  Salvation 
Army.  The  supernatural  element  in  religion,  laments 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  "  survives  in  great  strength 
down  to  our  own  day.  Religious  creeds,  established 
and  dissenting,  all  embody  the  belief  that  right  and 
wrong  are  right  and  wrong  simply  in  virtue  of  divine 
enactment."  2  This  is  so  :  but  not  apparently  because 
of  some  meaningless  instinct  in  man.  It  is  so  in 
virtue  of  a  fundamental  law  of  our  social  evolution. 
It  is  not  that  men  perversely  reject  the  light  set  before 

1  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  50. 


122  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

them  by  that  school  of  ethics  which  has  found  its 
highest  expression  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  theories. 
It  is  simply  that  the  deep-seated  instincts  of  society 
have  a  truer  scientific  basis  than  our  current  science. 
Finally,  if  our  inquiry  so  far  has  led  us  to  correct 
conclusions,  we  have  the  clue  to  a  large  class  of  facts 
which  has  attracted  the  notice  of  many  observers,  but 
which  has  hitherto  been  without  scientific  explanation. 
We  see  now  why  it  is  that,  as  Mr.  Lecky  asserts,  "  all 
religions  which  have  governed  mankind  have  done 
so  ...  by  speaking,  as  common  religious  language 
describes  it,  to  the  heart,"  *  and  not  to  the  intellect ; 
or,  as  an  advocate  of  Christianity  has  recently  put  it 
—  A  religion  makes  its  way  not  by  argument,  or  by 
the  rational  sanctions  which  it  offers,  "  but  by  an 
appeal  to  those  fundamental  spiritual  instincts  of  men 
to  which  it  supremely  corresponds."  2  We  see  also 
why,  despite  the  apparent  tendency  to  the  disintegra- 
tion of  religious  belief  among  the  intellectual  classes 
at  the  present  day,  those  who  seek  to  compromise 
matters  by  getting  rid  of  that  feature  which  is  the 
essential  element  in  all  religions  make  no  important 
headway ;  and  why,  as  a  prominent  member  of  one 
of  the  churches  has  recently  remarked,  the  undog- 
matic  sects  reap  the  scantiest  harvest,  while  the 
dogmatic  churches  still  take  the  multitude.  We  are 
led  to  perceive  how  inherently  hopeless  and  mis- 
directed is  the  effort  of  those  who  try  to  do  what 
Camus  and  Gregoire  attempted  to  make  the  authors 
of  the  French  Revolution  do  —  reorganise  Christian- 
ity without  believing  in  Christ.     A  form  of   belief 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  p.  58. 

2  W.  S.  Lilly,  Nineteenth  Century,  September  1889. 


v  THE   FUNCTION  OF   RELIGIOUS   BELIEFS  123 

from  which  the  ultra-rational  element  has  been  elimi- 
nated is,  it  would  appear,  no  longer  capable  of  exer- 
cising the  function  of  a  religion. 

Professor  Huxley,  some  time  ago,  in  a  severe 
criticism  of  the  "Religion  of  Humanity"  advocated  by 
the  followers  of  Comte,1  asserted,  in  accents  which 
always  come  naturally  to  the  individual  when  he  looks 
at  the  drama  of  human  life  from  his  own  standpoint, 
that  he  would  as  soon  worship  "a  wilderness  of  apes  " 
as  the  Positivist's  rationalised  conception  of  humanity. 
But  the  comparison  with  which  he  concluded,  in  which 
he  referred  to  the  considerable  progress  made  by  Mor- 
monism  as  contrasted  with  Positivism,  has  its  ex- 
planation when  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing 
conclusions.  Mormonism  may  be  a  monstrous  form 
of  belief,  and  one  which  is  undoubtedly  destined  to 
be  worsted  in  conflict  with  the  forms  of  Christianity 
prevailing  round  it ;  yet  it  is  seen  that  we  cannot 
deny  to  it  the  characteristics  of  a  religion.  Although, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  "  Religion  of  Humanity " 
advocated  by  Comte  may  be,  and  is,  a  most  exemplary 
set  of  principles,  we  perceive  it  to  be  without  those 
characteristics.  It  is  not,  apparently,  a  religion  at  all. 
It  is,  like  other  forms  of  belief  which  do  not  provide 
a  super-rational  sanction  for  conduct,  but  which  call 
themselves  religions,  incapable,  from  the  nature  of 
the  conditions,  of  exercising  the  functions  of  a  relig- 
ion in  the  evolution  of  society.2 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  February  1889. 

2  It  is  very  interesting  to  notice  how  clearly  G.  H.  Lewes,  himself 
a  distinguished  adherent  of  Comte,  perceived  the  inherent  antagonism 
between  religion  and  philosophy  (the  aim  of  the  latter  having  always 
been  to  establish  a  rational  sanction  for  conduct),  and  yet  without  realis- 


124  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

In  the  religious  beliefs  of  mankind  we  have  not 
simply  a  class  of  phenomena  peculiar  to  the  child- 
hood of  the  race.  We  have  therein  the  characteristic 
feature  of  our  social  evolution.  These  beliefs  consti- 
tute, in  short,  the  natural  and  inevitable  complement 
of  our  reason  ;  and  so  far  from  being  threatened  with 
eventual  dissolution  they  are  apparently  destined  to 
continue  to  grow  with  the  growth  and  to  develop  with 
the  development  of  society,  while  always  preserving 
intact  and  unchangeable  the  one  essential  feature 
they  all  have  in  common  in  the  ultra-rational  sanction 

ing  the  significance  of  this  antagonism  in  the  process  of  social  evolution 
the  race  is  undergoing.  Speaking  of  the  attempt  made  in  the  past  to 
establish  a  "  Religious  philosophy,"  he  remarks  upon  its  innate  impossi- 
bility because  the  doctrines  of  religion  have  always  been  held  to  have 
been  revealed,  and  therefore  beyond  and  inaccessible  to  reason.  u  So 
that,"  he  says,  "  metaphysical  problems,  the  attempted  solution  of  which 
by  Reason  constitutes  Philosophy,  are  solved  by  Faith  and  yet  the  name 
of  Philosophy  is  retained!  But  the  very  groundwork  of  Philosophy 
consists  in  reasoning,  as  the  groundwork  of  Religion  is  Faith.  There 
cannot,  consequently,  be  a  Religious  Philosophy :  it  is  a  contradiction 
in  terms.  Philosophy  may  be  occupied  about  the  same  problems  as 
Religion ;  but  it  employs  altogether  different  criteria,  and  depends  on 
altogether  different  principles.  Religion  may,  and  should  call  in  Phi- 
losophy to  its  aid  ;  but  in  so  doing  it  assigns  to  Philosophy  only  the  sub- 
ordinate office  of  illustrating,  reconciling,  or  applying  its  dogmas.  This 
is  not  a  Religious  Philosophy,  it  is  Religion  and  Philosophy,  the  latter 
stripped  of  its  boasted  prerogative  of  deciding  for  itself,  and  allowed 
only  to  employ  itself  in  reconciling  the  decisions  of  Religion  and  of 
Reason  "  (History  of  Philosophy,  vol.  i.  p.  409).  These  are  words  writ- 
ten with  true  scientific  insight.  But  a  clearer  perception  of  the  funda- 
mental problem  of  human  evolution  might  have  led  the  writer  to  see 
that  the  universal  instinct  of  mankind  which  has  recognised  that  the 
essential  element  in  a  religion  is  that  its  doctrines  should  be  inaccessi- 
ble to  reason  has  its  foundation  in  the  very  nature  of  the  problem  our 
social  evolution  presents;  and  that  the  error  of  Comte  has  been  in 
assuming  that  a  set  of  principles  from  which  this  element  has  been 
eliminated  is  capable  of  performing  the  functions  of  a  religion. 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS   BELIEFS  125 

they  provide  for  conduct.  And  lastly,  as  we  under- 
stand how  an  ultra-rational  sanction  for  the  sacrifice 
of  the  interests  of  the  individual  to  those  of  the  social 
organism  has  been  a  feature  common  to  all  religions 
we  see,  also,  why  the  conception  of  sacrifice  has  occu- 
pied such  a  central  place  in  nearly  all  beliefs,  and  why 
the  tendency  of  religion  has  ever  been  to  surround 
this  principle  with  the  most  impressive  and  stupen- 
dous of  sanctions.1 

To  the  consideration  of  the  results  flowing  from 
this  recognition  of  the  real  nature  of  the  problem 
underlying  our  social  development  we  have  now  to 
address  ourselves.  If  we  have,  in  the  social  system 
founded  on  a  form  of  religious  belief,  the  true  organic 

1  It  is  the  expression  of  the  antagonism  between  the  interests  of  the 
individual  and  those  of  the  social  organism  in  process  of  evolution  that 
we  have  in  Kant's  conception  of  the  opposition  between  the  inner  and 
outer  life,  in  Green's  idea  of  the  antagonism  between  the  natural  man 
and  the  spiritual  man,  and  in  Professor  Caird's  conception  of  the  differ- 
ences between  self  and  not  self.  We  would  not  be  precluded  from 
accepting  religion  in  Fichte's  sense  —  as  the  realisation  of  universal 
reason  —  if  we  can  understand  universal  reason  involving  the  concep- 
tion that  the  highest  good  is  the  furtherance  of  the  evolutionary  process 
the  race  is  undergoing.  But  once  we  have  clearly  grasped  the  nature 
of  the  characteristic  problem  human  evolution  presents  we  see  how 
absolutely  individual  rationalism  has  been  precluded  from  attaining  this 
position :  it  can  only  be  reached  as  Kant  contemplated  —  "by  a  faith 
of  reason  which  postulates  a  God  to  realise  it"  (i.e.  the  ultra-rational). 
Individuals  repudiating  ultra-rational  sanctions  may  feel  it  possible  to 
willingly  participate  in  the  cosmic  process  in  progress  ;  but  conclusions 
often  drawn  from  this  involve  an  incomplete  realisation  of  the  fact  that 
the  feelings  which  render  it  possible  are  —  like  our  civilisations  them- 
selves —  the  direct  product  of  ethical  systems  founded  on  ultra-rational 
sanctions.  We  live  and  move  in  the  midst  of  the  influences  of  these 
systems,  and  it  is  only  by  a  mental  effort  of  which  only  the  strongest 
minds  are  capable  that  we  can  even  imagine  what  our  action,  or  the 
action  of  others,  would  be  if  they  were  non-existent. 


126  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap,  v 

growth  with  which  science  is  concerned,  we  must,  it 
would  appear,  be  able  then  to  discover  some  of  the 
principles  of  development  under  the  influence  of 
which  the  social  growth  proceeds.  If  it  is  in  the 
ethical  system  upon  which  a  social  type  is  founded 
that  we  have  the  seat  of  a  vast  series  of  vital  phe- 
nomena unfolding  themselves  in  obedience  to  law, 
then  we  must  be  able  to  investigate  the  phenomena 
of  the  past  and  to  observe  the  tendencies  of  the  cur- 
rent time  with  more  profit  than  the  study  of  either 
history  or  sociology  has  hitherto  afforded.  Let  us  see, 
therefore,  with  what  prospect  of  success  the  biologist, 
who  has  carried  the  principles  of  his  science  so  far 
into  human  society,  may  now  address  himself  to  the 
consideration  of  the  history  of  that  process  of  life  in 
the  midst  of  which  we  are  living,  and  which  we  know 
under  the  name  of  Western  Civilisation. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WESTERN    CIVILISATION 

To  obtain  even  a  general  idea  of  that  vast  organic 
growth  in  the  midst  of  which  we  are  living,  and  which 
for  want  of  a  better  name  we  call  Western  Civilisa- 
tion, it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  the  point  of  view- 
should  be  removed  to  some  distance.  When  this  is 
done  the  resulting  change  in  aspect  is  very  striking. 
We  are  apt  to  imagine  that  many  of  the  more  obvious 
features  of  the  society  in  which  we  live  go  to  consti- 
tute the  natural  and  normal  condition  of  the  world ; 
that  they  have  always  existed,  and  that  it  is  part  of 
the  order  of  things  that  they  should  always  continue 
to  exist.  It  is  far  more  difficult  than  might  be  imag- 
ined for  the  average  mind  to  realise  that  the  main 
features  of  our  modern  society  are  quite  special  in 
the  history  of  the  world ;  that  institutions  which  seem 
a  necessary  part  of  our  daily  life  and  of  our  national 
existence  are  absolutely  new  and  exceptional ;  and 
that  under  the  outward  appearance  of  stability  they 
are  still  undergoing  rapid  change  and  development. 

We  have  only  to  look  round  us  to  immediately  per- 
ceive how  comparatively  recent  in  origin  are  many  of 
the  most  characteristic  features  of  our  social  life. 
Our  trades,  commerce,  and  manufactures,  our  bank- 
ing systems,  our  national  debts,  our  huge  systems  of 
credit,  are  the  growth  of  scarcely  more  than  two  cen- 

127 


128  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

turies.  The  revolution  in  methods  of  travel  and 
means  of  communication,  and  our  systems  of  universal 
education,  are  the  products  of  the  century  in  which 
we  are  still  living.  The  capitalism  and  industrialism 
of  to-day,  and  the  world  market  which  they  seek  to 
supply,  are  but  recent  growths.  The  immense  revo- 
lution which  applied  science  has  made  in  the  modern 
world,  dates  its  beginning  scarcely  more  than  a  cen- 
tury back,  is  still  in  full  progress,  and  is  yet  far  from 
having  reached  a  point  at  which  any  limits  whatever 
can  be  set  to  it.  Yet  all  these  things  are  brought 
before  the  mind  only  with  an  effort.  "  It  is,"  says 
Sir  Henry  Maine,  "  in  spite  of  overwhelming  evidence, 
most  difficult  for  a  citizen  of  Western  Europe  to  bring 
thoroughly  home  to  himself  the  truth  that  the  civili- 
sation which  surrounds  him  is  a  rare  exception  in  the 
history  of  the  world."  1  It  is  a  still  more  difficult 
task  for  the  observer  to  realise  that,  in  point  of  time, 
it  is  all  a  growth  occupying  a  very  small  space  in  the 
period  with  which  history  deals,  and  an  almost  infini- 
tesimal span  of  time  in  the  period  during  which  the 
human  race  has  existed. 

When  we  bring  ourselves  to  look,  from  this  point 
of  view,  at  the  times  in  which  we  live,  we  begin  to 
perceive  that  no  just  estimate  of  the  tendencies  of 
our  civilisation,  or  of  the  nature  of  the  forces  at  work 
therein,  can  be  arrived  at  by  merely  taking  into  ac- 
count those  new  forces  which  have  been  unloosed 
amongst  us  during  the  last  century  or  two.  One  of 
the  most  characteristic  features  of  the  social  literature 
of  our  time  is,  nevertheless,  the  attempt  which  is 
often  made  therein  to  consider  our  social  problems 

1  Ancient  Law,  p.  22. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  129 

as  if  they  were  the  isolated  growths  of  a  short  period. 
It  would  appear  that  those  who  think  about  these 
problems,  while  rightly  perceiving  that  we  in  reality 
live  in  the  midst  of  the  most  rapid  change  and  prog- 
ress, forthwith  become  so  impressed  with  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  change,  that  they  overlook  the  connec- 
tion between  the  present  and  the  past,  and  form  no 
true  conception  of  the  depth  and  strength  of  the  im- 
pression which  the  centuries,  that  have  preceded  our 
own,  have  produced  on  the  age  in  which  we  are  living. 
The  essential  unity  and  continuity  of  the  vital  process 
which  has  been  in  progress  in  our  civilisation  from  the 
beginning  is  almost  entirely  lost  sight  of.  Many 
of  the  writers  on  social  subjects  at  the  present  day 
are  like  the  old  school  of  geologists ;  they  seem  to 
think  that  progress  has  consisted  in  a  series  of  cata- 
clysms. Some  there  are  who  would  almost  have  us 
believe  that  society  was  created  anew  at  the  period  of 
the  French  Revolution ;  and  in  the  French  nation 
of  the  present  day  we  have  the  extraordinary  spectacle 
of  a  whole  people  who  have  cut  themselves  off  from 
the  past  in  the  world  of  thought,  almost  as  completely 
as  they  have  done  in  the  world  of  politics.  Others 
see  the  same  destructive,  transforming,  and  recreative 
influences  in  universal  suffrage,  universal  education, 
the  rule  of  democracy,  and  modern  socialism,  instead 
of  only  the  connected  features  of  a  vast  orderly 
process  of  development  unfolding  itself  according  to 
law. 

If  then  our  civilisation  is  a  rare  exception  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  if  at  the  same  time  it  is,  and 
has  been  from  the  beginning,  in  a  state  of  change  and 
constant  development,  the  question  which  presents 


130  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

itself  at  the  outset  is  :  What  are  the  characteristics 
in  which  this  civilisation  differs  from  that  of  other 
peoples,  and  from  the  civilisations  of  the  past  ? 

When  such  a  comparison  is  instituted  the  most 
striking  and  obvious  features  immediately  present 
themselves  in  the  great  advances  which  have  been 
made  in  the  arts  of  life,  in  trade,  manufactures,  and 
commerce,  in  the  practical  appliances  of  science,  and 
the  means  of  communication.  But  we  may,  neverthe- 
less, put  these  features  entirely  aside  for  the  present. 
A  little  reflection  suffices  to  make  it  clear  that  the 
civilisation  around  us  does  not  owe  its  existence  to 
these ;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  these  features,  like 
many  others,  have  had  their  cause  and  origin  in  certain 
principles  inherent  in  our  civilisation  existing  apart 
in  themselves,  and  serving  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
civilisations  of  other  peoples  and  other  times. 

If  we  look  round  us  we  may  perceive  that,  although 
the  system  of  civilisation  to  which  we  belong  has  a 
clearly-defined  place  amongst  the  peoples  of  the  earth, 
it  has  really  no  definite  racial  or  national  boundaries. 
It  is  not  Teutonic  or  Celtic  or  Latin  civilisation. 
Nor  is  it  German  or  French  or  Italian  or  Anglo- 
Saxon.  So  far  as  we  have  any  right  to  connect  it 
with  locality,  it  might  be  described  as  European 
civilisation,  although  this  definition  would  still  be  in- 
complete if  not  inaccurate.  The  expression  which  is 
applied  most  suitably  to  describe  the  social  system  to 
which  we  belong  is  that  in  general  use,  viz.  "  Western 
Civilisation." 

Now,  viewing  this  civilisation  as  a  single  continuous 
growth,  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  point  at 
which  its  life-history  begins.     We  must  go  back  to  the 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  131 

early  centuries  of  our  Era.  This  extraordinary  period 
in  the  world's  history  possesses  the  deepest  interest 
for  the  scientific  mind.  At  that  time  a  civilisation, 
not  only  the  most  powerful  and  successful  which  man 
had  so  far  evolved,  but  in  which  all  previous  civilisa- 
tions had  found  their  highest  type  and  expression, 
had  already  commenced  to  die,  even  though  it  still 
possessed  all  the  outward  appearance  of  strength  and 
majesty.  It  had  culminated  in  a  period  of  extraordi- 
nary intellectual  activity.  Into  the  century  before 
and  that  immediately  following  the  Christian  era, 
there  are  crowded  the  names  of  an  altogether  remark- 
able number  of  men  who  did  work  of  the  very  highest 
order  in  nearly  every  sphere  of  intellectual  activity 
then  open  to  the  world.  Cicero,  Varro,  Virgil,  Catul- 
lus, Horace,  Lucretius,  Ovid,  Tibullus,  Sallust,  Caesar, 
Livy,  Juvenal,  the  two  Plinys,  Seneca,  Quintilian, 
and  Tacitus  in  literature  alone  are  all  included  in  this 
brief  period.  They  have  all  left  work  by  which  they 
are  still  remembered,  some  of  it  probably  reaching 
the  highest  degree  of  intellectual  excellence  to  which 
the  human  mind  has  ever  attained.  But  the  Roman 
genius  had  passed  its  flowering  period.  Roman  civ- 
ilisation had  reached  its  prime.  The  organism  had 
ceased  to  grow,  and  the  vigorous  life  which  had 
flowed  in  so  many  diverse  channels  throughout  the 
vast  body  had  begun  to  wane. 

We  have  to  note  that  for  some  time  previously  the 
ethical  system  upon  which  the  Roman  dominion  had 
been  built  up  had  begun  to  decay.  It  no  longer  con- 
trolled men's  minds.  "  The  old  religions,"  says  Mr. 
Froude,  speaking  of  Caesar's  time,  "  were  dead,  from 
the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  Euphrates  and  the  Nile, 


132  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

and  the  principles  upon  which  human  society  had  been 
constructed  were  dead  also."1  The  efforts  of  succes- 
sive emperors,  beginning  with  Augustus,  to  restore 
old  forms,  to  prop  up  declining  religion,  and  to  revive 
the  spirit  of  a  defunct  ethical  system,  were  utterly 
vain.  Henceforward,  amid  all  the  intellectual  sys- 
tems for  regulating  conduct  which  the  time  produced, 
we  have  only  to  watch  the  progress  of  those  well- 
marked  and  well-known  symptoms  of  decay  and  dis- 
solution which  life  at  a  certain  stage  everywhere 
presents. 

But  underneath  all  this  history  of  death  the  observer 
has,  outlined  before  him,  a  remarkable  spectacle.  It 
is  the  phenomenon  of  a  gigantic  birth.  To  the  sci- 
entific mind,  there  can  be  no  mistaking  the  signs 
which  accompany  the  beginning  of  life,  whether  it  be 
the  birth  of  the  humblest  plant,  or  of  a  new  solar 
system ;  and  in  the  fierce  ebullition  of  life  which 
characterised  that  extraordinary  and  little  understood 
period  of  the  world's  history,  commencing  with  the 
first  centuries  of  our  era,  we  have  evidently  the 
beginning  of  a  vast  series  of  vital  phenomena  of 
profound  scientific  interest. 

The  new  force  which  was  born  into  the  world  with 
the  Christian  religion  was,  evidently,  from  the  very 
first,  of  immeasurable  social  significance.  The  orig- 
inal impetus  was  immense.  The  amorphous  vigour 
of  life  was  so  great  that  several  centuries  have  to 
pass  away  before  any  clear  idea  can  be  obtained  of 
even  the  outlines  of  the  growth  which  it  was  destined 
to  build  up  out  of  the  dead  elements  around  it. 
From  the  very  beginning  its  action  was   altogether 

1  Casar,  by  J.  A.  Froude. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  133 

unusual.  The  constructive  principle  of  life  was 
unmistakable  ;  men  seemed  to  be  transformed ;  the 
ordinary  motives  of  the  individual  mind  appeared  to 
be  extinguished.  The  new  religion  evoked,  "to  a 
degree  before  unexampled  in  the  world,  an  enthu- 
siastic devotion  to  its  corporate  welfare,  analogous  to 
that  which  the  patriot  bears  to  his  country."  *  There 
sprang  from  it  "  a  stern,  aggressive,  and  at  the  same 
time  disciplined  enthusiasm,  wholly  unlike  any  other 
that  had  been  witnessed  upon  earth."2 

Amid  the  corruption  of  the  time  the  new  life 
flourished  as  a  thing  apart ;  it  took  the  disintegrated 
units  and  built  them  up  into  the  new  order,  drawing 
strength  from  the  decay  which  was  in  progress 
around  it.  When  the  state  at  length  put  forth  its  in- 
fluence against  it  in  the  persecutions  which  followed, 
it  only  exhibited  the  altogether  uncontrollable  nature 
of  the  force  which  was  moving  the  minds  of  men. 
The  subordination  of  the  materials  to  the  constructive 
principle  of  life  which  was  at  work  amongst  them, 
was  complete.  "There  has  probably  never  existed 
upon  earth  a  community  whose  members  were  bound 
to  one  another  by  a  deeper  or  purer  affection  than 
the  Christians  in  the  days  of  the  persecution,"  says 
Mr.  Lecky.3  Self  seemed  to  be  annihilated.  The 
boundaries  of  classes,  and  even  of  nationalties  and  of 
races,  went  down  before  the  new  affinities  which 
overmastered  the  strongest  instincts  of  men's  minds. 

We  have  to  note  also  that  the  new  force  was  in  no 
way  the  product  of  reason  or  of  the  intellect.  No 
impetus    came   from  this  quarter.      As  in  all  move 

1  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  vide  p.  409 
etc.  2  Ibid.  3  Ioid% 


134  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION 


CHAP. 


ments  of  the  kind,  the  intellectual  forces  of  the  time 
were  directly  in  opposition.  The  growing  point 
where  all  the  phenomena  of  life  were  actively  in  prog- 
ress, was  buried  low  down  in  the  under-strata  of 
society  amongst  the  most  ignorant  and  least  influen- 
tial classes.  The  intellectual  scrutiny  which  had 
undermined  the  old  faiths,  saw  nothing  in  the  new. 
So  ignorant  were  men  of  the  nature  of  the  physiologi- 
cal laws  to  which  the  social  organism  is  subject,  that 
the  intellectual  classes  were  altogether  unconscious, 
both  of  the  nature  and  of  the  destiny  of  the  move- 
ment which  was  unfolding  itself  underneath  their 
eyes.  They  were  either  actively  hostile  or  passively 
contemptuous.  There  is  no  fact  in  the  history  of  the 
human  mind  more  remarkable,  says  Mr.  Lecky,  than 
the  complete  unconsciousness  of  the  destinies  of 
Christianity,  manifested  by  writers  before  the  acces- 
sion of  Constantine.  "  That  the  greatest  religious 
change  in  the  history  of  mankind  should  have  taken 
place  under  the  eyes  of  a  brilliant  galaxy  of  philoso- 
phers and  historians  who  were  profoundly  conscious  of 
the  decomposition  around  them  ;  that  all  these  writers 
should  have  utterly  failed  to  predict  the  issue  of  the 
movement  they  were  observing,  and  that  during  the 
space  of  three  centuries  they  should  have  treated  as 
simply  contemptible,  an  agency  which  all  men  must 
now  admit  to  have  been,  for  good  or  evil,  the  most 
powerful  moral  lever  that  has  ever  been  applied  to  the 
affairs  of  men,  are  facts  well  worthy  of  meditation  in 
every  period  of  religious  transition."  1 

When  the  mists  with  which  prejudice  and  contro- 
versy have  surrounded  this  remarkable  epoch  in  the 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  p.  359. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  135 

world's  history  disappear,  it  must  become  clear  to 
science  that  what  we  have  in  reality  to  note  in  the 
events  of  these  early  centuries,  is  not  the  empty  and 
barren  fury  of  controversy  and  fanaticism,  but  the 
uncontrollable  vigour  and  energy  of  a  social  move- 
ment of  the  first  magnitude  in  its  initial  stage. 
There  was  no  suggestion  of  maturity,  or  of  the  vast 
consequences  which  were  inherent  in  the  vital  process 
which  was  at  work.  Scarcely  anything  can  be  dis- 
tinguished at  first  save  the  conception  of  the  super- 
natural constitution  of  society  being  launched  with 
enormous  initial  energy,  and  the  absolute  subordina- 
tion of  the  materials  to  the  constructive  forces  which 
were  at  work  amongst  them.  The  extraordinary 
epidemic  of  asceticism,  which  at  the  beginning  over- 
ran the  world,  merits  much  more  than  the  mere  pain- 
ful curiosity  with  which  so  many  philosophical  and 
controversial  writers  have  regarded  it.  It  marks  in 
the  mQst  striking  manner,  not  only  the  strength  of 
the  conception  of  the  supernatural,  but  the  extent 
of  that  spirit  of  utter  self-abnegation  which  had 
been  born  into  the  world,  and  which  was  destined 
to  find  its  significant  social  expression  only  at  a  later 
stage. 

The  contrast  which  the  ideals  of  the  time  pre- 
sented when  compared  with  those  of  the  past  is  so 
striking  that  many  writers  of  philosophical  insight 
still  altogether  misunderstand  the  social  significance 
of  this  movement ;  and,  looking  only  upon  that  as- 
pect which  most  readily  attracts  notice,  can  scarcely, 
even  at  the  present  time,  bring  themselves  to  speak 
tolerantly  of  it.  Says  Mr.  Lecky,  "A  hideous,  sor- 
did, and  emaciated  maniac  without  knowledge,  with- 


136  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

out  patriotism,  without  natural  affection,  passing  his 
life  in  a  long  routine  of  useless  and  atrocious  self- 
torture,  and  quailing  before  the  ghastly  phantoms  of 
his  delirious  brain,  had  become  the  ideal  of  nations 
which  had  known  the  writings  of  Plato  and  Cicero, 
and  the  lives  of  Socrates  and  Cato."  *■  But  no  greater 
mistake  can  be  made  than  the  common  one  of  judg- 
ing this  development,  and  the  larger  movement  of 
which  it  formed  a  phase,  by  contemporaneous  re- 
sults. It  cannot  be  properly  regarded  from  such  a 
narrow  standpoint.  Its  real  significance  lies  in  the 
striking  evidence  it  affords,  even  at  this  early  stage, 
of  the  unexampled  vigour  of  the  immature  social 
forces  at  work.  The  writer  just  quoted  has  else- 
where shown  a  truer  appreciation  of  the  nature  of 
these  forces  in  speaking  of  them  as  those  which  were 
subsequently  to  "  stamp  their  influence  on  every 
page  of  legislation,  and  direct  the  whole  course  of 
civilisation  for  a  thousand  years." 

As  the  development  continues  we  note  the  grow- 
ing organisation  of  the  Church,  the  utter  and  willing 
subordination  of  reason,  the  slow  extinction  of  every 
form  of  independent  judgment,  the  gradual  waning 
and,  with  the  complete  predominance  of  one  of  the 
two  conflicting  factors  in  our  evolution,  the  almost 
entire  cessation  of  every  form  of  intellectual  activity 
in  the  presence  of  the  tremendous  supernatural  ideal 
which  held  possession  of  the  minds  of  men  through- 
out the  Western  world. 

We  reach  at  length  the  twelfth  century.  All 
movement,  so  far,  has  been  in  one  direction.  West- 
ern Europe  has  become  a  vast  theocracy.     Implicit 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  ii.  p.  114. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  137 

obedience  to  ecclesiastical  authority,  unquestioning 
faith  in  the  ultra-rational,  the  criminality  of  doubt 
and  of  error,  is  the  prevailing  note  throughout  every 
part  of  the  organisation.  Human  history  is  without 
any  parallel  to  the  life  of  these  centuries,  or  to  the 
state  which  society  had  now  reached.  The  Church 
is  omnipotent ;  her  claim  is  to  supremacy  in  all 
things?  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual;  emperors  and 
kings  hold  their  crowns  from  God  as  her  vassals ;  the 
whole  domain  of  human  activity,  moral,  social,  politi- 
cal, and  intellectual,  is  subject  to  her.  All  the  at- 
tainments of  the  Greek  and  Roman  genius  are  buried 
out  of  sight.  The  triumphs  of  the  ancient  civilisa- 
tions are  as  though  they  had  never  existed :  they  are 
not  only  forgotten  ;  there  is  simply  no  organic  con- 
tinuity between  the  old  life  and  that  which  has 
replaced  it. 

This  transformation  had  been  no  rapid  and  fitful 
development.  A  period,  longer  by  some  centuries 
than  that  separating  the  present  time  from  the  date 
of  the  Norman  Conquest  of  England,  had  passed 
away ;  and  in  the  interval  the  characters  of  men  and 
every  human  institution  had  been  profoundly  modi- 
fied by  the  movement  that  had  filled  the  world. 
With  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  as  the 
other  factor  in  our  social  evolution  begins  to  assert 
itself,  we  have  the  first  stirrings  heralding  the  com- 
ing revolution.  In  the  fifteenth  century  we  at  length 
take  our  stand,  in  the  period  of  the  Renaissance,  on 
the  great  watershed  which  divides  the  modern  world 
from  the  old.  No  one  can  have  caught  the  spirit  of 
the  evolutionary  science  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
nineteenth   century,  who  can   from  this  point  look 


138  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

back  over  the  history  of  the  gigantic  movement 
which  absorbed  the  entire  life  of  the  world  for  four- 
teen centuries,  and  then  forward  over  its  history  in 
the  centuries  that  intervene  between  the  Renaissance 
and  our  own  time,  without  realising  the  utter  futil- 
ity of  attempting  to  formulate  the  principles  which 
are  working  themselves  out  in  our  modern  civilisa- 
tion, without  taking  this  religious  movement  into 
account.  The  evolutionist  perceives  that  it,  in  real- 
ity, dwarfs  and  overshadows  everything  else.  What- 
ever we  may,  as  individuals,  think  of  the  belief  in 
which  it  originated,  or  of  the  principles  upon  which 
it  was  founded  and  upon  which  it  still  exists,  we 
are  all  alike  the  product  of  it ;  the  entire  modern 
world  is  but  part  of  the  phenomena  connected  with 
it.  Science  must,  sooner  or  later,  recognise  that  in 
this  movement  we  have,  under  observation,  the  seat, 
the  actual  vital  centre,  of  that  process  of  organic  de- 
velopment which  is  still  unfolding  itself  in  what  is 
called  Western  Civilisation. 

So  far,  fourteen  centuries  of  the  history  of  our 
civilisation  had  been  devoted  to  the  growth  and 
development  of  a  stupendous  system  of  other-worldli- 
ness.  The  conflict  against  reason  had  been  success- 
ful to  a*  degree  never  before  equalled  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  The  super-rational  sanction  for  con- 
duct had  attained  a  strength  and  universality  un- 
known in  the  Roman  and  Greek  civilisations.  The 
state  was  a  divine  institution.  The  ruler  held  his 
place  by  divine  right,  and  every  political  office  and 
all  subsidiary  power  issued  from  him  in  virtue  of  the 
same  authority.  Every  consideration  of  the  present 
was  overshadowed  in  men's  minds  by  conceptions  of 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  139 

a  future  life,  and  the  whole  social  and  political  system 
and  the  individual  lives  of  men  had  become  profoundly- 
tinged  with  the  prevailing  ideas.1 

To  ask  at  this  stage  for  the  fruit  of  these  remark- 
able centuries,  and  in  the  absence  thereof  to  speak 
of  the  time  as  one  of  death  and  barrenness,  and  of 
the  period  as  the  most  contemptible  in  history,  is  to 
totally  misunderstand  the  nature  of  the  movement 
we  are  dealing  with.  The  period  was  barren  only  in 
the  sense  that  every  period  of  vigorous  but  immature 
growth  is  barren.  The  fruit  was  in  the  centuries  to 
come.  Science  has  yet  scarcely  learned  to  look  at  the 
question  of  our  social  evolution  from  any  standpoint 
other  than  that  of  the  rationalism  of  the  individual ; 
whereas,  we  undoubtedly  have  in  these  centuries  a 
period  in  the  lifetime  of  the  social  organism  when 
the  welfare,  not  only  of  isolated  individuals,  but  of  all 
the  individuals  of  a  long  series  of  generations,  was 
sacrificed  to  the  larger  interests  of  generations  at  a 
later  and  more  mature  stage.  As  we  turn  now  to 
the  period  which  intervenes  between  the  Renaissance 
and  our  own  time,  we  have  to  watch  the  gradual  reas- 
sertion  of  the  other  factor  in  our  social  development. 
The  successive  waves  of  revolution,  set  in  motion  by 
the  intellect,  which  follow  each  other  rapidly  from 
the  fourteenth  century  onwards,  have  all  one  feature 
in  common. 

The  Christian  religion  possessed  from  the  outset 

1  Bluntschli,  in  his  Theory  of  the  State  (translation  published  by 
Clarendon  Press),  well  brings  out,  in  the  tables  showing  the  differences 
between  the  modern,  mediaeval,  and  ancient  state,  the  prevailing  features 
of  the  Mediaeval  Theocracy  in  which  the  authority  of  the  state  was  held 
to  be  derived  from  God,  and  in  which  it  descended  from  the  vicegerent 
through  the  various  subsidiary  authorities  to  whom  it  was  delegated. 


140  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

two  characteristics  destined  to  render  it  an  evolu- 
tionary force  of  the  first  magnitude.  The  first  was 
the  extraordinary  strength  of  the  ultra-rational  sanc- 
tion it  provided,  which  was  developed  throughout  the 
long  period  we  have  been  considering.  The  second 
was  the  nature  of  the  ethical  system  associated  with 
it,  which,  as  we  shall  see,  was  at  a  later  stage  in  suit- 
able conditions  calculated  to  raise  the  peoples  coming 
under  its  influence  to  the  highest  state  of  social  effi- 
ciency ever  attained,  and  to  equip  them  with  most 
exceptional  advantages  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
with  other  peoples. 

Now,  it  will  have  been  evident  from  the  last  chap- 
ter, if  the  conclusions  there  arrived  at  were  correct, 
that  the  great  problem  with  which  every  progressive 
society  stands  continually  confronted  is  :  How  to  re- 
tain the  highest  operative  ultra-rational  sanction  for 
those  onerous  conditions  of  life  which  are  essential 
to  its  progress  ;  and  at  one  and  the  same  time  to 
allow  the  freest  play  to  those  intellectual  forces  which, 
while  tending  to  come  into  conflict  with  this  sanction, 
contribute  nevertheless  to  raise  to  the  highest  degree 
of  efficiency  the  whole  of  the  members  in  the  struggle 
for  existence.  From  the  fifteenth  century  onwards, 
the  movement  we  watch  in  progress  amongst  the 
races  of  Western  Europe  is  in  this  respect  two-sided. 
Henceforward  we  have,  on  the  one  hand,  to  note  the 
human  mind  driven  by  forces  set  in  motion  by  itself, 
ever  endeavouring  to  obtain  the  fullest  opportunity 
for  the  utilisation  of  those  advantages  with  which  it 
was  the  inherent  function  of  the  ethical  system  upon 
which  our  civilisation  is  founded  to  equip  society. 
On   the   other   hand  we  have   to  watch   in   conflict 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  141 

with  this  endeavour  a  profound  instinct  of  social 
self-preservation,  ever  struggling  to  maintain  intact 
that  ultra-rational  sanction  for  social  conduct  with 
which  the  life  of  every  social  system  is  ultimately 
united. 

The  first  great  natural  movement,  born  in  due  time, 
of  the  conflict  between  these  two  developmental  ten- 
dencies was  that  known  in  history  as  the  Reformation. 
But  to  bring  ourselves  into  a  position  to  appreciate  to 
the  full  the  exceptional  importance,  from  the  evolu- 
tionist's standpoint,  of  the  development  which  has 
been  in  progress  in  our  civilisation  from  the  sixteenth 
century  onwards,  it  is  desirable,  if  possible,  to  get  a 
clear  view  of  those  essential  features  in  which  our 
civilisation  differs  from  all  others. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  Chapter  II.  emphasis 
was  laid  on  the  fact  that  in  the  period  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  we  had  that  particular  epoch  in  the  history 
of  society,  in  which  a  long-drawn-out  stage  of  human 
evolution  culminated.  In  the  civilisation  there  devel- 
oped, we  had  the  highest  and  most  successful  expres- 
sion ever  reached  of  that  state  of  society,  in  which 
the  struggle  for  existence  is  waged  mainly  between 
communities  organised  against  each  other  on  a  mili- 
tary footing.  The  natural  culminating  period  of  such 
a  stage,  was  that  in  which  universal  dominion  was 
obtained,  and  held  for  a  long  period,  by  one  success- 
ful community. 

It  is  a  curious  feature  of  European  history  that  it 
should  present  to  us  the  clearest  evidence  of  the  sur- 
vival amongst  the  Western  peoples,  down  almost  into 
the  time  in  which  we  are  living,  of  those  ideals  of 
empire  which  found  their  natural  expression  in  the 


142  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

ancient  civilisations.  To  the  period  of  the  Napole- 
onic wars,  the  Roman  ideal  of  empire  and  conquest 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  regarded  by  the 
statesmen  or  the  people  of  any  of  the  nationalities 
included  in  the  European  family  as  other  than  a 
perfectly  legitimate  national  aspiration.  Yet  nothing 
can  be  clearer  to  the  evolutionist  when  he  comes  to 
understand  the  nature  of  the  process,  in  progress 
throughout  our  history,  than  that  those  ideals  have 
been  and  are,  quite  foreign  to  our  civilisation.  They 
are  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  tendency  of  the 
development  which  is  proceeding  therein.  Let  us, 
therefore,  in  order  to  understand  the  better  the  nature 
of  the  change  which  is  taking  place  in  our  modern 
societies,  briefly  glance  once  more  at  the  characteris- 
tic features  of  that  type  of  social  life  which  reached 
its  highest  phase  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Now,  from  the  beginning  it  may  be  noticed  that 
those  societies  which  existed  under  stress  of  circum- 
stances as  fighting  organisations,  presented  every- 
where certain  strongly-marked  features.  In  their 
early  stage  the  social  relations  may  be  summed  up 
briefly.  The  individual  is  of  little  account ;  the  men 
are  the  warriors  of  the  chief  or  the  state ;  the  women 
are  the  slaves  of  the  men,  and  the  children  are  the 
property  of  the  parents.  Infanticide  is  universal ; 
the  society  is  of  necessity  rudely  communistic  or  so- 
cialistic, and  the  population  is  kept  within  due  bounds 
by  the  simple  plan  of  killing  off  all  undesirable  acces- 
sions to  it.1  The  individual  per  se  has  few  rights 
"  natural  "  or  acquired ;    he  holds  his  property  and 

1  Even  in  the  Greek  states  and  amongst  the  Romans,  infanticide 
generally  prevailed,  and  the  act  excited  no  public  reprobation. 


vi  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  143 

even  his  life  at  the  mercy  of  a  despotism  tempered 
only  by  religious  forms  and  customs. 

The  high  state  of  civilisation  eventually  attained 
to  in  some  of  these  societies,  has  given  rise  to  many 
specious  comparisons  between  them  and  our  modern 
democratic  states.  But  such  comparisons  are  most 
misleading.  The  Greek  city  states  were  essentially 
military  units,  each  cherishing  its  own  independence, 
and,  as  a  rule,  seldom  remaining  long  free  from  war 
with  its  neighbours.  They  preserved  unchanged, 
down  to  the  end,  the  leading  characteristics  which 
the  Greek  communities  presented  at  the  period 
when  history  brings  us  first  into  contact  with  them. 
"Homer,"  says  Mr.  Mahaffy,  "introduces  us  to  a 
very  exclusive  caste  society,  in  which  the  key  to  the 
comprehension  of  all  the  details  depends  upon  one 
leading  principle  —  that  consideration  is  due  to  the 
members  of  the  caste  and  even  to  its  dependents,  but 
that  beyond  its  pale,  even  the  most  deserving  are 
of  no  account  save  as  objects  of  plunder."1  At  a 
later  period  the  independent  organisations  of  the  city 
states  embraced  almost  every  shade  of  political  con- 
stitution. In  some,  what  was  called  a  "pure  democ- 
racy "  held  rule ;  in  others,  power  was  in  the  hands 
of  a  narrow  oligarchy ;  in  others,  it  was  exercised  by 
a  ruling  aristocracy ;  in  still  others,  it  was  in  the 
hands  of  tyrants.  But  in  all  of  them  the  ruling 
classes  had  a  single  feature  in  common  —  their  mili- 
tary origin.  They  represented  the  party  which  had 
imposed  its  rule  by  force  on  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity, at  best  at  a  comparatively  remote  period,  at 
worst  within  living  memory.     The  difference  between 

1  Social  Life  in  Greece,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy,  p.  44. 


144  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  ruling  class,  even  in  an  aristocracy  and  a  democ- 
racy, was,  as  Professor  Freeman  has  remarked,  simply 
that  in  one  case  the  legislative  power  and  eligibility 
to  high  office  was  extended  to  the  whole,  and  in  the 
other  confined  to  a  part,  of  a  class  of  hereditary  burgh- 
ers. "  In  no  case  did  it  extend  beyond  that  class  ; 
in  no  case  could  the  freedman,  the  foreigner,  or  even 
the  dependent  ally,  obtain  citizenship  by  residence, 
or  even  by  birth  in  the  land.  He  who  was  not  the 
descendant  of  citizen  ancestors,  could  be  enfranchised 
only  by  special  decree  of  the  sovereign  assembly."  1 
Even  in  Athens,  the  citizen  "  looked  down  upon  the 
vulgar  herd  of  slaves,  freedmen,  and  unqualified  resi- 
dents, much  as  his  own  plebeian  fathers  had  been 
looked  down  upon  by  the  old  Eupatrides  in  the  days 
before  Kleisthenes  and  Solon."2  As  for  any  con- 
ception of  duty  or  responsibility  to  others  outside 
the  community,  it  did  not  exist.  Morality  was  of  the 
narrowest  and  most  egotistical  kind.  It  never,  among 
the  Greeks,  embraced  any  conception  of  humanity  ; 
no  Greek,  says  George  Henry  Lewes,  ever  attained 
to  the  sublimity  of  such  a  point  of  view.3 

This  feature  of  a  large  excluded  class  with  a  basis 
of  slavery  beneath  the  whole  political  fabric  must 
never  be  lost  sight  of  in  these  ancient  military  socie- 
ties. The  Greek  writers  seemed,  indeed,  to  be  unable 
to  imagine  a  condition  of  social  organisation  in  which 
there  should  not  be  either  a  large  excluded  class,  or 
slaves  or  barbarians,  to  relieve  the  ruling  class   of 

1  History  of  Federal  Government  (Greek  Federations),  vol.  i. 
chap.  ii. 

2  Ibid. 

8  History  of  Philosophy,  vol.  i.  p.  408. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  145 

what  they  considered  the  menial  and  inferior  duties 
of  existence.1 

In  the  Roman  Empire  again  we  have  only  the 
highest  example  of  the  military  state.  Ancient 
Rome,  as  already  noticed,  was  a  small  city  state 
which  attained  the  position  it  eventually  occupied  in 
the  world  by  a  process  of  natural  selection,  its  career 
from  the  beginning  being  a  record  of  incessant  fight- 
ing, in  which  at  several  points  its  very  existence 
seemed  to  be  at  stake.  In  the  Roman  Empire,  as  in 
the  Greek  states,  an  immense  proportion  of  the  popu- 
lation were  slaves  without  rights  of  any  kind.  Gibbon 
calculated  that  in  the  time  of  Claudius  the  slaves 
were  at  least  equal  in  numbers  to  the  free  inhabitants 
in  the  entire  Roman  world.2  The  highest  ambition 
amongst  the  leading  citizens  in  the  remainder  of  the 
Roman  population  was  to  serve  the  state  in  a  mili- 
tary capacity,  and  to  bring  about  the  subjugation  of 
other  states  and  peoples.  Universal  conquest  was 
the  recognised  and  unquestioned  policy  of  the  state. 
The  subjugation  of  rivals  implied  something  very 
different  from  what  we  have  come  to  understand  by 
the  term  :  it  meant  compelling  other  peoples  to  pour 
their  tribute  into  Rome.     The  national  policy  was  in 

1  Professor  Freeman  held  this  to  be  the  really  weak  point  of  Greek 
Democracy.  "  The  real  special  weakness  of  pure  Democracy  is  that  it 
almost  seems  to  require  slavery  as  a  necessary  condition  of  its  existence. 
It  is  hard  to  conceive  that  a  large  body  of  men,  like  the  qualified  citi- 
zens of  Athens,  can  ever  give  so  large  a  portion  of  their  time,  as  the 
Athenians  did,  to  the  business  of  ruling  and  judging,  without  the  exist- 
ence of  an  inferior  class  to  relieve  them  from  at  least  the  lowest  and 
most  menial  duties  of  their  several  callings.  Slavery,  therefore,  is  com- 
monly taken  for  granted  by  Greek  political  thinkers." 

2  Vide  chap.  ii.  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

L 


146  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

reality  but  the  organised  exploitation  by  force  and 
violence  of  weaker  peoples.  Trade  and  commerce  as 
we  know  them  were  unknown  to  the  Romans,  and 
they  could  not  have  attained  any  large  development 
under  such  an  organisation  of  society.  Such  agri- 
culture and  manufactures  as  existed  were  carried 
on  mainly  by  slaves,  and  occupations  connected  with 
them  were  regarded  as  unworthy  of  free  men.  The 
higher  classes  in  Rome  looked  with  contempt  upon 
trade  of  any  kind,  and  passed  laws  forbidding  their 
members  to  engage  therein.  It  was  the  same  even 
in  the  freest  of  the  Greek  democracies.  One  of  the 
leading  features  of  Attic  culture,  says  Mr.  MahafTy, 
"  was  the  contempt  of  trade  or  indeed  of  any  occupa- 
tion which  so  absorbed  a  man  as  to  deprive  him  of 
ample  leisure.  Though  architects  were  men  of  great 
position,  and  obtained  large  fees,  yet  in  Plato's  Gor- 
gias  we  have  so  intellectual  a  trade  as  that  of  an 
engineer  despised ;  and  in  Aristotle's  Politics  (p.  1 340) 
we  find  the  philosopher,  with  deeper  wisdom,  censur- 
ing the  habit  of  aiming  at  perfection  in  instrumental 
music  as  lowering  to  the  mind,  and  turning  the  free 
gentleman  into  a  slavish  handicraftsman."  Possibly, 
he  continues,  "  we  may  have  this  feeling  rather 
strongly  represented  by  aristocratic  writers  like  Plato 
and  Aristophanes,  who  felt  hurt  at  tradesmen  coming 
forward  prominently  in  politics;  but  the  tone  of 
Athenian  life  is  too  marked  in  this  respect  to  let  us 
mistake  the  fact."  x  The  free  men  of  Rome  could 
hardly  be  said  to  work ;  they  fought  or  lived  on  the 
produce  of  fighting.  The  rich  and  their  dependents 
had  obtained  their  wealth  or  their  positions  directly 

1  Social  Life  in  Greece,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy,  chap.  ix. 


vi  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  147 

or  indirectly  through  the  incessant  wars ;  the  rest 
during  a  prolonged  period  lived  on  the  corn  sent  as 
tribute  to  Rome  and  distributed  by  public  demand 
amongst  the  citizens. 

As  might  have  been  expected  in  a  military  com- 
munity of  the  kind,  the  relationship  of  the  individual 
to  the  state  was  one  of  complete  subordination  — 
individual  freedom  as  against  the  state  was  unknown. 
Religion  lent  its  aid  to  ennoble  the  duty  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  a  military  society  rather  than  to  his  fellows, 
and  all  its  authority,  like  all  the  best  ability  of  the 
community,  was  pressed  into  the  immediate  service 
of  a  military  organisation.  The  military  virtues  were 
predominant ;  the  priesthood  was  a  political  office ; 
patriotism  occupied  a  position  in  public  estimation 
which  it  is  difficult  nowadays  to  realise.  Cicero  but 
gave  expression  in  its  best  form  to  the  spirit  which 
pervaded  the  whole  fabric  of  the  ancient  state,  when 
he  asserted  that  no  man  could  lay  claim  to  the  title 
of  good  who  would  hesitate  to  die  for  his  country ; 
and  that  the  love  owed  thereto  by  the  citizen  was 
holier  and  more  profound  than  that  due  from  him  to 
his  nearest  kinsman. 

Now  what  we  have  to  notice  in  such  states  is  that 
as  they  all  originated  in  successful  military  enterprise, 
it  always  happened  that  relatively  small  communities 
or  organisations,  having  at  the  beginning  obtained 
power  and  extended  their  influence  over  other  peo- 
ples, the  members  of  these  original  castes  thence- 
forward regarded  themselves  as  distinct  ruling  classes 
within  the  social  organisation.  They  secured  to  them- 
selves special  privileges,  and  were  considered  superior 
to  the  great  majority  of   their  fellows,  whom  they 


148  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

forthwith  thrust  out  as  an  inferior  class  apart.  These 
latter,  with  the  immense  number  of  slaves  continually 
being  made  in  war  and  by  other  means,  constituted 
the  foundation  upon  which  the  social  fabric  rested. 
The  inevitable  tendency  of  successful  military  enter- 
prise to  concentrate  power  in  the  hands  of  a  few  did 
not  act  to  check  the  organisation  of  society  in  the 
direction  in  which  it  was  thus  set  from  the  beginning, 
but  served  to  continually  strengthen  the  position  of 
the  ruling  classes.  The  evolutionary  forces  which  we 
shall  have  to  observe  at  work  amongst  ourselves,  and 
affecting  to  such  an  extraordinary  degree  the  further 
development  of  society,  could  not  operate  to  any  ex- 
tent in  such  communities.  The  great  mass  of  the 
people,  under  the  sway  of  restrictive  laws  invented 
by  these  military  oligarchies  in  their  own  interests, 
were  artificially  penned  off  beyond  the  reach  of  such 
forces,  and  so  came  in  time  to  accept  their  reputed 
inferiority,  their  restricted  rights,  and  their  op- 
pressed condition,  as  part  of  the  natural  order  of 
things. 

Progress  was,  therefore,  strictly  limited  in  the  mili- 
tary state.  All  the  outward  magnificence  which  was 
attained  by  the  Roman  Empire  at  the  period  of  its 
maximum  development  was,  in  effect,  but  the  result 
of  the  most  ruthless  centralisation,  the  most  direct 
and  impoverishing  exploitation,  and  the  most  un- 
bridled individual  and  class  aggrandisement  at  the 
expense  of  immense  oppressed  populations,  largely 
comprised  of  slaves.  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  has 
recently  attempted,  in  an  eloquent  passage,  to  de- 
scribe what  Rome  must  have  looked  like  some  seven- 
teen or  eighteen  hundred   years   ago  when  viewed 


vi  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  149 

from  the  tower  of  the  Capitol,1  and  the  picture  is  help- 
ful and  suggestive  in  enabling  us  to  realise  more 
vividly  the  nature  of  that  social  type  which  culminated 
in  the  empire.  "This  earth,"  he  concludes,  "has 
never  seen  before  or  since  so  prodigious  an  accumu- 
lation of  all  that  is  beautiful  and  rare.  The  quarries 
of  the  world  had  been  emptied  to  find  precious  mar- 
bles. Forests  of  exquisite  columns  met  the  gaze, 
porphyry,  purple  and  green,  polished  granite,  streaked 
marbles  in  the  hues  of  a  tropical  bird,  yellow,  orange, 
rosy,  and  carnation,  ten  thousand  statues,  groups  of 
colossi  of  dazzling  Parian  or  of  golden  bronze,  the 
work  of  Greek  genius,  of  myriads  of  slaves,  of  unlim- 
ited wealth  and  absolute  command.  Power  so  colos- 
sal, centralisation  so  ruthless,  luxury  so  frantic,  the 
world  had  never  seen,  and,  we  trust,  can  never  see 
again." 

There  are  two  leading  questions  which  now  present 
themselves.  First,  What  is  the  real  significance  of 
that  developmental  process  at  work  in  our  modern 
societies  which  is  carrying  us  so  far  away  from  that 
social  type  we  have  outlined  before  us  in  the  Greek 
States  and  the  Roman  Empire  ?  Second,  What  is 
the  nature  of  the  evolutionary  force  which  has  thus 
so  completely  changed  the  current  of  social  develop- 
ment among  those  who  are  now  the  leading  peoples 
of  the  world  ? 

We  have  already,  in  Chapter  II.,  referred  to  that 
movement  of  modern  societies  noticed  by  Sir  Henry 
Maine,  the  effect  of  which  has  been  to  gradually  sub- 
stitute the  individual  for  the  group  as  the  unit  of 
which  our  civil  laws  take  account.     Now  this  prog- 

1  Vide  Fortnightly  Reviezu,  No.  cccxvii.,  New  Series. 


150  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


CHAP. 


ress  towards  individual  liberty,  which  is  known  to 
the  student  of  jurisprudence  as  the  movement  from 
status  to  contract,  and  which  has  thus,  as  it  were,  be- 
come registered  in  our  laws,  has  a  deeper  meaning 
than  at  first  sight  appears.  Closely  regarding,  as  a 
whole,  the  process  of  change  which  has  been  going 
on  in  our  Western  civilisation,  the  evolutionist  begins 
to  perceive  that  it  essentially  consists  in  the  slow 
breaking-up  of  that  military  type  of  society  which 
reached  its  highest  development  in,  although  it  did 
not  disappear  with,  the  Roman  Empire.  Throughout 
the  history  of  the  Western  peoples  there  is  one  cen- 
tral fact  which  underlies  all  the  shifting  scenes  which 
move  across  the  pages  of  the  historian.  The  political 
history  of  the  centuries  so  far  may  be  summed  up  in 
a  single  sentence  :  it  is  the  story  of  the  political  and 
the  social  enfranchisement  of  the  masses  of  the  people 
hitherto  universally  excluded  from  participation  in 
the  rivalry  of  existence  on  terms  of  equality.  This 
change,  it  is  seen,  is  being  accomplished  against  the 
most  prolonged  and  determined  resistance  at  many 
points,  and  under  innumerable  forms  of  the  power- 
holding  classes  which  obtained  under  an  earlier  con- 
stitution of  society  the  influence  which  they  have 
hitherto,  to  a  large  extent,  although  in  gradually 
diminishing  measure,  continued  to  enjoy.  The  point 
at  which  the  process  tends  to  culminate  is  a  condition 
of  society  in  which  the  whole  mass  of  the  excluded 
people  will  be  at  last  brought  into  the  rivalry  of  exist- 
ence on  a  footing  of  equality  of  opportunity. 

The  steps  in  this  process  have  been  slow  to  a  de- 
gree, but  the  development  has  never  been  interrupted, 
and  it  probably  will  not  be  until  it  has  reached  that 


vi  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  151 

point  up  to  which  it  has  always  been  the  inherent 
tendency  of  the  principle  of  our  civilisation  to  carry 
it.  The  first  great  stage  in  the  advance  was  accom- 
plished when  slavery,  for  the  first  time  in  history, 
became  extinct  in  Europe  somewhere  about  the  four- 
teenth century.  From  this  point  onward  the  devel- 
opment has  continued  under  many  forms  amongst 
the  peoples  included  in  our  civilisation  —  locally  ac- 
celerated or  retarded  by  various  causes,  but  always 
in  progress.  Amongst  all  the  Western  peoples  there 
has  been  a  slow  but  sure  restriction  of  the  absolute 
power  possessed  under  military  rule  by  the  head 
of  the  state.  The  gradual  decay  of  feudalism  has 
been  accompanied  by  the  transfer  of  a  large  part  of 
the  rights,  considerably  modified,  of  the  feudal  lords 
to  the  landowning,  and  later  to  the  capitalist  classes 
which  succeeded  them.  But  we  find  these  rights 
undergoing  a  continuous  process  of  restriction,  as  the 
classes  which  inherited  them  have  been  compelled  to 
extend  political  power  in  ever-increasing  measure  to 
those  immediately  below.  As  the  rights  and  power 
of  the  upper  classes  have  been  gradually  curtailed, 
the  great  slowly-formed  middle  class  has,  in  its  turn, 
found  itself  confronted  with  the  same  developmental 
tendency.  Wider  and  wider  the  circle  of  political  in- 
fluence has  gradually  extended.  Whether  the  prog- 
ress has  been  made  irregularly  amid  the  throes  of 
revolution,  or  more  regularly  in  the  orderly  course  of 
continuous  legislative  enactment,  it  has  never  ceased. 
The  nineteenth  century  alone  has  witnessed  an  enor- 
mous extension  of  political  power  to  the  masses 
amongst  most  of  the  advanced  peoples  included  in 
our  civilisation.     In  England  the  list  of  measures, 


152  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

aiming  either  directly  or  indirectly  at  the  emancipa- 
tion and  the  raising  of  the  lower  classes  of  the  people, 
that  have  been  placed  on  the  statute-book  in  the  life- 
time of  even  the  present  generation,  is  an  imposing 
one,  and  it  continues  yearly  to  be  added  to.  Last  of 
all  it  may  be  perceived  that  in  our  own  day,  amid  all 
the  conflict  of  rival  parties,  and  all  the  noise  and 
exaggeration  of  heated  combatants,  we  are  definitely 
entering  on  a  stage  when  the  advancing  party  is  com- 
ing to  set  clearly  before  it,  as  the  object  of  endeavour, 
the  ideal  of  a  state  of  society  in  which  there  shall  be 
at  last  no  law-protected  power-holding  class  on  the 
one  side,  and  no  excluded  and  disinherited  masses 
on  the  other  —  a  stage  in  which,  for  a  long  period  to 
come,  legislation  will  aim  at  securing  to  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  community  the  right  to  be  admitted  to 
the  rivalry  of  life,  as  far  as  possible,  on  a  footing  of 
equality  of  opportunity. 

As  the  evolutionist  ponders  on  this  process  of  de- 
velopment, its  immense  significance  is  gradually  per- 
ceived. He  observes  that  it  is  only  our  familiarity 
with  the  process  which  obscures  from  us  the  fact  that 
it  is  absolutely  unique  in  the  history  of  the  race.  Its 
inherent  tendency  he  sees  must  be  not  to  suspend  the 
rivalry  of  life,  but  to  raise  it  to  the  highest  possible 
degree  of  efficiency  as  a  cause  of  progress.  So  far 
from  our  civilisation  tending  to  produce  an  interrup- 
tion of  or  an  exception  to,  the  cosmic  process  which 
has  been  in  progress  from  the  beginning  of  life,  its 
distinctive  and  characteristic  feature,  he  observes, 
must  be  found  in  the  exceptional  degree  to  which  it 
has  furthered  it.  The  significance  of  the  entire  order 
of  social  change  in  progress    amongst  the  Western 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  153 

peoples,  consists,  in  short,  in  the  single  fact  that  this 
cosmic  process  tends  thereby  to  obtain  amongst  us  the 
fullest,  highest,  and  completest  expression  it  has  ever 
reached  in  the  history  of  the  race. 

It  has  been  noticed  that  in  that  state  of  society 
which  flourished  under  the  military  empires,  the  ex- 
tent to  which  progress  could  be  made  was  strictly 
limited.  In  a  social  order  comprising  a  series  of 
hereditarily  distinct  groups  or  classes,  and  resting 
ultimately  on  a  broad  basis  of  slavery,  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  people  were  penned  off  apart,  and  ex- 
cluded from  all  opportunity  of  developing  their  own 
personalities.  Those  forces  which  have  created  the 
modern  world  could,  therefore,  have  little  opportunity 
for  action  or  for  development.  In  Eastern  countries, 
where  the  institution  of  caste  still  prevails,  we  have, 
indeed,  only  an  example  of  a  condition  of  society  in 
which  (in  the  absence  of  that  developmental  force 
which  we  shall  have  to  observe  at  work  amongst  our- 
selves) these  groups  and  classes  have  become  fixed 
and  rigid,  and  in  which,  consequently,  progress  has 
been  thwarted  and  impeded  at  every  turn  by  innu- 
merable barriers  which  have  for  ages  prevented  that 
free  conflict  of  forces  within  the  community  which 
has  made  so  powerfully  for  progress  among  the  West- 
ern peoples.1 

1  Castes  had  their  place  and  meaning  in  an  earlier  stage  of  social 
evolution  ;  they  were  an  inevitable  incident  accompanying  a  certain 
stage  of  military  expansion.  Probably,  as  Professor  Marshall  has  re- 
marked, the  feature  was  at  the  time  probably  well  suited  to  its  environ- 
ment, as  "  in  early  times  ...  all  the  nations  which  were  leading  the 
van  of  the  world's  progress  were  found  to  agree  in  having  adopted  a 
more  or  less  strict  system  of  caste."  "  One  peculiarity  invariably  distin- 
guishes the  infancy  of  societies,"  remarks  Sir  Henry  Maine.     "  Men 


154  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

When  we  follow  the  process  of  development  gradu- 
ally proceeding  throughout  European  history,  we  can 
be  in  no  doubt  as  to  its  character.  We  see  that  the 
energies  of  men,  instead  of  being,  as  in  the  earlier 
societies,  either  stifled  altogether,  or  absorbed  in  the 
service  of  the  state  to  be  utilised  largely  in  the  exploi- 
tation of  other  peoples  by  violence,  have  continually 
tended  to  find  a  freer  outlet.  But  the  process,  we 
observe,  has  been  accompanied  by  a  steady  increase 
of  energy,  enterprise,  and  activity  amongst  the 
peoples  most  affected.  As  the  movement  which  is 
bringing  the  excluded  masses  of  the  people  into  the 
competition  of  life  on  a  footing  of  equality  has  con- 
tinued, its  tendency,  while  humanising  the  conditions, 
has  unmistakably  been  to  develop  in  intensity,  and  to 
raise  in  efficiency  the  rivalry  in  which,  as  the  first  con- 
dition of  progress,  we  are  all  engaged.  As  the  oppor- 
tunity has  been  more  and  more  fully  secured  to  the 
individual  to  follow  without  restraint  of  class,  privi- 
lege, or  birth  wherever  his  capacity  or  abilities  lead 
him,  so  also  have  all  those  features  of  vigorous 
enterprise,  indomitable  energy,  and  restless  activ- 
ity which  distinguish  the  leading  branches  of  the 
European  peoples  become  more  marked.  As  the 
rivalry  has  become  freer  and  fairer,  the  stress  has 
become  greater  and  the  results  more  striking.  All 
those  remarkable  features  of  the  modern  world  which 

are  regarded  and  treated,  not  as  individuals,  but  always  as  members  of 
a  particular  group.  Everybody  is  first  a  citizen,  and  then,  as  a  citizen, 
he  is  a  member  of  his  order,  —  of  an  aristocracy  or  a  democracy,  of  an 
order  of  patricians  or  of  plebeians  ;  or,  in  those  societies  which  an  un- 
happy fate  has  afflicted  with  a  special  perversion  in  their  course  of 
development,  of  a  caste;  next  he  is  a  member  of  a  gens,  house,  or  clan; 
and  lastly,  he  is  a  member  of  his  family."  —  Ancient  Law,  p.  183. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  155 

impress  the  imagination,  which  serve  to  distinguish 
our  times  so  effectively  from  the  past,  and  which  have 
to  a  large  extent  contributed  to  place  the  European 
peoples  outside  the  fear  of  rivalry  from  any  other 
section  of  the  race  are,  in  effect,  but  the  result  of 
those  strenuous  conditions  of  life  which  have  accom- 
panied the  free  play  of  forces  in  the  community,  this 
latter  being  in  its  turn  the  direct  product  of  the 
movement  which  is  bringing  the  masses  of  the 
people  into  the  rivalry  of  existence  on  conditions  of 
equality. 

It  may  be  perceived,  in  short,  that  the  character- 
istic process  of  development,  which  is  carrying  us  so 
far  away  from  that  social  type  which  reached  its  high- 
est expression  in  the  ancient  civilisations,  is  only  an- 
other phase  of  that  process  already  noticed,  which  has 
been  throughout  history  gradually  shifting  the  seat  of 
power  northwards  into  regions  where  the  struggle  for 
existence  is  severest.  In  the  process  of  social  expan- 
sion which  the  Western  races  are  undergoing,  they 
are  being  worked  up  to  a  high  state  of  efficiency  in 
the  rivalry  of  life.  The  resulting  energy,  activity, 
vigour,  and  enterprise  of  the  peoples  most  deeply 
affected  by  this  process  has  given  them  the  command- 
ing place  they  have  come  to  occupy  in  the  world.  It 
is  in  the  extent  to  which  it  has  contributed  to  further 
this  development  and  to  increase  the  stress  of  life 
that  we  must  recognise  the  significance  of  that  broad- 
ening down  throughout  the  centuries  of  individual 
liberty,  observable  alike  in  pur  laws,  our  political 
institutions,  and  our  social  and  domestic  relations. 
It  is  as  an  aspect  of  this  development  that  we  must 
regard  the  importance  of  that  progress  towards  eco- 


156  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap,  vi 

nomic  freedom,  which  political  economists  are  coming 
to  look  upon  as  characteristic  of  modern  times.1  And 
it  is  as  a  necessary  accompaniment  of  the  same  devel- 
opment that  we  must  recognise  the  significance  of 
that  movement  which,  having  at  length  almost  com- 
pleted the  political  enfranchisement  of  the  masses, 
has  in  our  own  day,  amid  much  misconception  and 
misapprehension,  already  begun  their  social  emanci- 
pation. 

So  far  we  have  attempted  to  answer  the  question 
as  to  the  significance  in  the  eyes  of  the  evolutionist 
of  that  developmental  process  in  progress  in  our  civ- 
ilisation. To  answer  the  question  as  to  what  is  the 
nature  of  the  evolutionary  force  which  has  been  be- 
hind it,  we  must  now  return  to  the  consideration  of 
the  unfolding  of  that  organic  process  of  development 
which  has  its  seat  in  the  ethical  system  upon  which 
our  civilisation  is  founded. 

1  Vide  Professor  Marshall's  Principles  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  p.  8. 


CHAPTER  VII 

western  civilisation  —  {continued) 

It  is  not  improbable,  after  the  sanguine  expecta- 
tions which  have  been  entertained  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  to  the 
part  which  the  intellect  is  destined  to  play  in  human 
evolution,  that  one  of  the  most  remarkable  features 
of  the  age  upon  which  we  are  entering  will  be  the 
disillusionment  we  are  likely  to  undergo  in  this  re- 
spect. There  has  been  for  long  abroad  in  the  minds 
of  men,  an  idea,  which  finds  constant  expression 
(although  it  is  not  perhaps  always  clearly  and  con- 
sistently held)  that  this  vast  development  in  the 
direction  of  individual,  economic,  political,  and  social 
enfranchisement  which  has  been  taking  place  in  our 
civilisation,  is  essentially  an  intellectual  movement. 
Nothing  can  be  more  obvious,  however,  as  soon  as 
we  begin  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  process  of 
evolution  in  progress  around  us,  than  that  the  mov- 
ing force  behind  it  is  not  the  intellect,  and  that  the 
development  as  a  whole  is  not  in  any  true  sense  an 
intellectual  movement.  Nay  more,  we  may  distin- 
guish, with  some  degree  of  clearness,  the  nature  of 
the  part  taken  therein  by  the  intellect.  It  is  an  im- 
portant part  certainly,  but  it  is  also  beyond  doubt  a 
subordinate  one,  strictly  limited  and  circumscribed. 
The  intellect  is  employed  in  developing  ground  which 
has  been  won  for  it  by  other  forces.     But  it  would 

i57 


158  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

appear  that  it  has  by  itself  no  power  to  occupy  this 
ground;  it  has  not  even  any  power  to  continue  to 
hold  it  after  it  has  been  won  when  these  forces  have 
spent  and  exhausted  themselves. 

We  have  seen  that  to  obtain  a  just  conception  of 
our  Western  civilisation,  it  is  necessary  to  regard  it 
from  the  beginning  as  a  single  continuous  growth, 
endowed  with  a  definite  principle  of  life,  subject  to 
law,  and  passing,  like  any  other  organism,  through 
certain  orderly  stages  of  development.  If  we  look 
back  once  more  over  that  ethical  movement  which 
we  have  regarded  as  the  seat  of  the  vital  phenomena 
we  are  witnessing,  and  which  projects  itself  with  such 
force  and  distinctness  through  the  history  of  the 
European  peoples,  it  may  be  perceived  that  it  is 
divided  into  two  clearly-defined  stages.  In  the  pre- 
ceding chapter  our  attention  was  confined  exclusively 
to  the  first  of  these  stages.  The  second  stage  began 
with  the  Renaissance,  or,  more  accurately  speaking, 
with  the  Reformation,  and  it  continues  down  into  the 
period  in  which  we  are  living. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  last  chapter  it  was 
insisted  that  the  dominant  and  determinative  feature 
of  the  first  period  was  the  development  of  an  ultra- 
rational  sanction  for  the  constitution  of  society ;  which 
sanction  attained,  in  the  European  Theocracy  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  a  strength  and  influence  never 
before  known.  All  the  extraordinary  series  of  phe- 
nomena peculiar  to  the  centuries  which  have  become 
known  as  "  the  ages  of  faith  "  are  in  this  light  to  be 
regarded,  it  was  maintained,  as  constituting  the  early 
and  immature  aspects  of  a  movement  endowed  from 
the   beginning   with   enormous    vital   energy.      The 


vii  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  159 

process,  as  a  whole,  was  to  reach  fruition  only  at  a 
later  stage.  In  the  second  period,  as  the  other  fac- 
tor in  our  evolution  begins  slowly  to  operate,  we 
see  the  revolutionary  and  transforming  forces  which 
from  the  outset  constituted  the  characteristic  element 
in  the  religious  system  upon  which  our  civilisation  is 
founded,  but  which  during  the  period  of  growth  were 
diverted  into  other  channels,  now  finding  their  true 
social  expression.  We  witness  in  this  period  the  be- 
ginning, and  follow  through  the  centuries  the  prog- 
ress, of  a  social  revolution  unequalled  in  magnitude 
and  absolutely  unique  in  character,  a  revolution  the 
significance  of  which  is  perceived  to  lie,  not,  as  is 
often  supposed,  in  its  tendency  to  bring  about  a  con- 
dition of  society  in  which  the  laws  of  previous  devel- 
opment are  to  be  suspended ;  but  in  the  fact  that  it 
constitutes  the  last  orderly  stage  in  the  same  cosmic 
process  which  has  been  in  progress  in  the  world  from 
the  beginning  of  life.  Let  us  see  if  we  can  explain 
the  nature  of  the  force  that  has  been  behind  this 
revolution,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  has  operated 
in  producing  that  process  of  social  development  which 
the  Western  peoples  are  still  undergoing. 

If  the  mind  is  carried  backwards  and  concentrated 
on  the  first  period  of  the  religious  movement  which 
began  in  the  early  centuries  of  our  era,  it  will  be 
noticed  that  there  was  one  feature  which  stood  out 
with  great  prominence.  It  is  a  matter  beyond  ques- 
tion that  this  movement  involved  from  its  inception 
the  very  highest  conception  of  the  Altruistic  ideal  to 
which  the  human  mind  has  in  any  general  sense  ever 
attained.  At  this  distance  of  time  this  characteristic 
is  still  unmistakable.    "  Any  impartial  observer,"  says 


160  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

Mr.  Lecky,  "  would  describe  the  most  distinctive  virtue 
referred  to  in  the  New  Testament  as  love,  charity,  or 
philanthropy."  1  It  is  the  spirit  of  charity,  pity,  and 
infinite  compassion  which  breathes  through  the  gos- 
pels. The  new  religion  was,  at  the  outset,  actually 
and  without  any  figurative  exaggeration  what  the 
same  writer  has  called  it  elsewhere,  "a  proclama- 
tion of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man."  We  note 
how  it  was  this  feature  which  impressed  the  minds 
of  men  at  first.  The  noble  system  of  ethics,  the  affec- 
tion which  the  members  bore  to  each  other,  the  de- 
votion of  all  to  the  corporate  welfare,  the  spirit  of 
infinite  tolerance  for  every  weakness  and  inequality, 
the  consequent  tendency  to  the  dissolution  of  social 
and  class  barriers  of  every  kind,  beginning  with  those 
between  slave  and  master,  and  the  presence  every- 
where of  the  feeling  of  actual  brotherhood,  were  the 
outward  features  of  all  the  early  Christian  societies. 

Now  it  seems  at  first  sight  a  remarkable  fact,  even 
at  the  present  day,  that  the  adherents  of  a  form  of 
belief  apparently  so  benevolent  and  exemplary  should 
have  been  at  an  early  stage  in  the  history  of  the 
movement  subjected  to  the  persecutions  which  they 
had  to  endure  under  the  Roman  Empire.  It  is  not, 
in  fact,  surprising  that  many  writers  should  have  fol- 
lowed Gibbon,  in  search  of  a  satisfactory  explanation, 
into  an  elaborate  analysis  of  the  causes  that  led  the 
Roman  state,  which  elsewhere  exercised  so  contempt- 
uous a  tolerance  for  the  religions  of  the  peoples  whom 
it  ruled,  to  have  undertaken  the  rigorous  measures 
which  it  from  time  to  time  endeavoured  to  enforce 
against  the  adherents  of  the  new  movement.     "  If," 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  ii.  p.  130. 


vn  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  161 

says  Gibbon,  "we  recollect  the  universal  toleration 
of  Polytheism,  as  it  was  invariably  maintained  by  the 
faith  of  the  people,  the  incredulity  of  the  philoso- 
phers, and  the  policy  of  the  Roman  senate  and  em- 
perors, we  are  at  a  loss  to  discover  what  new  offence 
the  Christians  had  committed,  what  new  provocation 
could  exasperate  the  mild  indifference  of  antiquity, 
and  what  new  motives  could  urge  the  Roman  princes 
who  beheld  without  concern  a  thousand  forms  of 
religion  subsisting  in  peace  under  their  gentle  sway, 
to  inflict  a  severe  punishment  on  any  part  of  their 
subjects  who  had  chosen  for  themselves  a  singular 
but  an  inoffensive  mode  of  faith  and  worship.  The 
religious  policy  of  the  ancient  world  seems  to  have 
assumed  a  more  stern  and  intolerant  character  to 
oppose  the  progress  of  Christianity."  1 

A  peculiar  feature  of  the  persecutions  under  the 
Roman  Empire  was  that  they  were  not  to  any  extent 
originated  by  the  official  classes.  Particular  emperors 
or  magistrates  may  have  used  for  their  own  purposes 
the  prejudices  which  existed  in  the  popular  mind 
against  the  new  sect ;  but  these  prejudices  were 
already  widespread  and  general.  The  enlightened 
classes  were,  indeed,  rather  puzzled  than  otherwise 
at  the  deep-seated  feelings  which  they  found  in  exist- 
ence against  the  adherents  of  the  movement.  They, 
for  the  most  part,  knew  very  little,  and  scarcely 
troubled  to  inquire,  about  the  real  nature  of  the  new 
doctrines.  Even  Tacitus  saw  in  the  Christians  only 
a  sect  peculiar  for  their  hatred  of  humankind,  who 
were,  in  consequence,  branded  with  deserved  infamy ; 
while  Pliny  was  content  with  asserting  that  whatever 

1  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  vol.  i.  chap.  xvi. 
M 


162  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

might  be  the  principle  of  their  conduct,  their  unyield- 
ing obstinacy  was  deserving  of  punishment. 

What  it  is,  however,  of  the  highest  importance  to 
note  here  is  that  it  was  those  same  altruistic  ideals, 
which  seem  so  altogether  exemplary  in  our  eyes,  that 
filled  the  minds  of  the  lower  classes  of  the  Roman 
population  (who  were  not  permeated  with  the  intel- 
lectual scepticism  of  the  educated  classes)  with  vague 
but  deep-seated  distrust  and  hatred  of  the  new  relig- 
ion and  its  adherents.  The  profound  social  instincts 
of  the  masses  of  the  people  —  then,  as  nearly  always, 
possessing  a  truer  scientific  basis  than  the  merely 
intellectual  insight  of  the  educated  classes  —  recog- 
nised, in  fact,  in  the  new  ideals  which  were  moving 
the  minds  of  men,  a  force  not  only  different  in  nature 
and  potentiality  to  any  of  which  the  ancient  world 
had  previous  experience,  but  one  which  was  funda- 
mentally antagonistic  to  the  forces  which  had  hith- 
erto held  together  that  organisation  of  society  which 
had  culminated  in  the  Empire. 

Hence  it  was  that  this  popular  feeling  found  ex- 
pression in  accusations,  many  of  which  appear  so 
strange  to  us.  The  adherents  of  the  new  faith  were 
accused,  not  only  of  dissolving  the  sacred  laws  of 
custom  and  education  and  of  abhorring  the  gods  of 
others,  but  of  "undermining  the  religious  constitution 
of  the  empire,"  of  being  "  a  society  of  atheists,  with- 
out patriotism,"  who  obstinately  refused  to  hold  com- 
munion with  the  gods  of  Rome,  of  the  empire,  and  of 
mankind.  The  populace  of  the  ancient  world,  in  fact, 
rightly  regarded  as  a  public  danger  the  adherents 
of  a  religion,  in  the  altruistic  conceptions  of  which 
all  the  bonds  of  race,  nationality,  and  class  were  dis- 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  163 

solved  ;  and  treated  them  consequently  as  outcasts 
to  be  branded  with  infamy  by  all  men,  of  whatever 
creed  or  nationality,  in  a  world  where  the  universal 
constitution  of  society  had  hitherto  been  that  which 
had  found  its  highest  expression  in  the  epoch  in 
which  men  were  living. 

We  must  keep  clearly  in  mind,  therefore,  that  it 
was  the  nature  of  the  altruistic  ideals  of  the  new 
religion  which  from  the  beginning  differentiated  it 
in  so  marked  a  manner  from  all  other  faiths ;  and 
that  while  it  was  this  characteristic  which  formed 
one  of  the  most  powerful  causes  of  its  spread  and 
influence,  it  was  also  the  feature  which  was  instinc- 
tively recognised  as  constituting  a  danger  to  the  uni- 
versal social  order  of  the  ancient  world,  and  which 
caused  the  religion  to  be  early  singled  out  for  the 
exceptional  treatment  it  received  at  the  hands  of  the 
Roman  state. 

As  the  movement  progressed  it  must  be  noticed 
that  the  altruistic  ideals  which  thus,  from  the  outset, 
formed  the  distinctive  feature  of  the  new  faith  were 
not  extinguished,  but  that,  in  the  period  of  intense 
vitality  which  ensued,  they  became,  as  the  religious 
principle  developed,  overshadowed  by,  and  merged 
in,  the  supernatural  conceptions  with  which  they  were 
necessarily  associated.  In  the  epidemic  of  asceticism 
which  overspread  the  world,  every  consideration  of 
the  present  became  dominated  by  conceptions  of  an- 
other life ;  but  in  these  conceptions  we  still  perceive 
that  self-abnegation  and  self-sacrifice  in  this  life  were 
held  to  be  the  proper  preparation  for  the  next,  and 
that  they  constituted  the  very  highest  ideal  of  accept- 
able conduct  the  world  could  then  comprehend.     As 


164  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  ascetic  period  was  succeeded  by  the  monastic 
period,  there  is  no  essential  distinction  to  be  made  ; 
for  in  the  latter  we  have  only  the  organised  expres- 
sion of  the  former.  Throughout  all  this  prolonged 
period  we  have  to  note  that  self-sacrifice  and  the 
unworthiness  of  every  effort  and  ambition  centred  in 
self  or  in  this  life  was  the  ideal  the  Church  consist- 
ently held  before  the  minds  of  men.  Nor  was  this 
the  standard  of  the  cloister  only ;  throughout  every 
section  of  the  European  Theocracy  the  minds  and 
lives  of  men  were  profoundly  imbued  with  the  spirit 
of  this  teaching.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  faults 
and  excesses  of  the  Church,  there  can  be  no  question 
as  to  the  tendency  of  its  doctrine  to  exalt  the  altruis- 
tic ideal ;  and,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  to  raise 
the  conduct  prescribed  by  it  to  the  highest  level  of 
human  reverence  it  had  ever  reached.  At  a  time 
when  the  military  organisation  of  society  still  out- 
wardly retained  a  scarcely  diminished  influence  over 
the  Western  mind,  the  act  which  became  typical  of 
the  higher  life  was  to  wash  the  feet  of  social  inferiors 
and  beggars.  At  a  period  when  the  history  of  the 
ancient  empires  still  formed  a  kind  of  lustrous  back- 
ground, in  the  light  of  which  the  deeds  of  men  con- 
tinually tended  to  be  judged,  the  typical  vision  of  the 
Church  was  always  of  the  knight 

Who,  in  many  climes  and  without  avail, 
Had  spent  his  life  for  the  Holy  Grail ; 

but  who  found  it  at  last  in  the  cup  and  the  crust 
which  he  shared  with  the  outcast  leper.  In  an  age  of 
turbulence  and  war,  and  while  force  continued  to  be 
everywhere  triumphant,  the  uncompromising  doctrine 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  165 

of  the  innate  equality  of  men  was  slowly  producing 
the  most  pregnant  and  remarkable  change  that  has 
ever  passed  over  the  minds  of  a  large  section  of  the 
race.  Even  the  all-powerful  ruling  classes  could  not 
remain  permanently  unaffected  by  a  voice  which, 
taking  them  generation  after  generation  in  their  tri- 
umphs and  pleasures  as  well  as  in  their  most  impres- 
sionable moments,  whispered  with  all  the  weight  of 
the  most  absolute  and  unquestioned  authority  that 
they  were  in  reality  of  the  same  clay  as  other  men, 
and  that  in  the  eyes  of  a  higher  Power  they  stood  on 
a  footing  of  native  equality  with  even  the  lowest  of 
the  earth. 

We  now  come  to  the  beginning  of  the  second  stage 
which  is  reached  in  the  great  social  movement  known 
in  history  as  the  Reformation.  The  importance  of 
this  movement,  as  we  shall  better  understand  later, 
is  very  great,  much  greater  indeed  than  the  histo- 
rian, with  the  methods  at  his  command,  has  hitherto 
assigned  to  it.  Its  immediate  significance  was,  that 
while,  as  already  explained,  it  represented  an  en- 
deavour to  preserve  intact  the  necessary  super- 
rational  sanction  for  the  ethical  ideals  of  the  Christian 
religion,  it  denoted  the  tendency  of  the  movement 
which  had  so  far  filled  the  life  of  the  Western  peoples 
to  find  its  social  expression.  It  liberated,  as  it  were, 
into  the  practical  life  of  the  peoples  affected  by  it, 
that  immense  body  of  altruistic  feeling  which  had 
been  from  the  beginning  the  distinctive  social  prod- 
uct of  the  Christian  religion,  but  which  had  hitherto 
been,  during  a  period  of  immaturity  and  intense  vital- 
ity, directed  into  other  channels.  To  the  evolutionist 
this  movement  is  essentially  a  social  development,    It 


166  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

took  place  inevitably  and  naturally  at  a  particular 
stage  which  can  never  recur  in  the  life  of  the  social 
organism.  In  his  eyes  its  significance  consists  in  the 
greater  development  which  the  altruistic  feelings 
must  attain  amongst  the  peoples  where  the  develop 
ment  was  allowed  to  proceed  uninterrupted  in  its 
course.  It  is,  it  would  appear,  amongst  these  peoples 
that  the  great  social  revolution  which  our  civilisation 
is  destined  to  accomplish  must  proceed  by  the  most 
orderly  stages,  must  find  its  truest  expression,  and 
must  produce  its  most  notable  results. 

Before  following  the  subject  further,  let  us,  how- 
ever, first  see  what*  is  the  real  function  in  the 
evolution  we  are  undergoing  of  this  great  body  of 
humanitarian  feeling  which  distinguishes  our  time  ; 
for  there  is  scarcely  any  other  subject  connected  with 
the  progress  we  are  making  upon  which  so  much  mis- 
conception appears  to  prevail.  So  far  from  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution  having  shed  light  thereon,  it  has, 
apparently,  in  some  respects  only  deepened  the  dark- 
ness, so  that  we  have,  from  time  to  time,  authoritative 
voices  raised  amongst  us  to  assert,  what  can  hardly  be 
possible,  namely,  that  the  most  important  result  of  the 
development  which  the  humanitarian  feelings  have 
attained  is  to  largely  secure  at  the  present  day  the 
survival  of  the  unfittest  in  society. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  one  of  the  most  marked 
features  of  our  times  is  the  development,  which  has 
taken  place,  of  the  feelings  that,  classed  together 
under  the  head  of  altruistic,  represent  in  the  abstract 
that  willingness  to  sacrifice  individual  welfare  in  the 
cause  of  the  welfare  of  others.  Yet  there  are  prob- 
ably few  students  of  social  progress  familiar  with  the 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  167 

explanations  currently  given  as  to  the  function  of 
these  feelings  in  our  modern  civilisation  who  have  not 
felt  at  one  time  or  another  that  such  explanations  are 
to  a  considerable  extent  unsatisfactory.  The  func- 
tions assigned  to  the  feelings  are  simply  not  suffi- 
ciently important  to  account  for  the  magnitude  of  the 
phenomenon  we  are  regarding.  We  seem  to  feel  that 
there  must  be  some  larger  process  of  evolution  be- 
hind, the  nature  of  which  remains  unexplained,  but 
which  should  serve  to  group  together,  as  the  details 
of  a  single  movement,  all  the  extraordinary  phenom- 
ena connected  with  the  humanitarian  feelings  which 
the  modern  world  presents. 

It  is,  of  course,  easy  to  understand  the  explanations 
currently  given  of  the  part  which  the  altruistic  feel- 
ings have  played  in  a  stage  of  development  anterior 
to  our  own.  Their  function  in  the  type  of  civilisa- 
tion which  culminated  in  the  Roman  Empire  is  clear 
enough  ;  the  devotion  of  the  individual  to  the  cor- 
porate welfare  was  one  of  the  first  essentials  of  suc- 
cess in  societies  which  existed  primarily  for  military 
purposes,  where  the  struggle  for  existence  was  carried 
on  mainly  between  organised  bodies  of  men.  We  had, 
accordingly,  in  this  stage  of  society  an  extreme  sense 
of  devotion  to  clan  or  country.  Sentiment,  education, 
and  religion  all  lent  their  aid  to  ennoble  the  idea  of 
absolute  self-sacrificing  devotion  to  the  state  ;  so  that 
virtue  amongst  the  ancients  seemed  always  to  be  in- 
dissolubly  associated  with  the  idea  of  patriotism  in 
some  form. 

But,  although  we  live  in  an  age  in  which  the  altru- 
istic feelings  have  attained  a  development  previously 
unexampled  in  the  history  of  the  race,  the  conditions 


168  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

under  which  they  exercised  so  important  a  function 
at  an  earlier  stage  seem  to  be  slowly  disappearing. 
Patriotism,  not  of  the  modern  kind,  but  of  the  type 
which  prevailed  during  the  Roman  period,  has  long 
been  decaying  amongst  us,  and  the  tendency  of  the 
present  time  undoubtedly  points  in  the  direction  of 
a  continuous  decline  in  the  strength  of  this  feeling. 
Again,  our  civilisation  would  appear,  at  first  sight,  to 
be  distinctly  unfavourable  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
altruistic  feelings,  or  to  their  utilisation  as  a  develop- 
mental force.  From  time  to  time,  as  already  men- 
tioned, we  are  even  informed  that  the  teaching  of 
Darwinian  science  is  that  these  feelings  are  actually 
injurious  to  society,  and  that  in  their  operation  now 
they  tend  largely  to  promote  amongst  us  the  sur- 
vival of  the  unfittest.  We  have  seen  how,  in  some 
respects,  the  tendency  of  progress  from  ancient  to 
modern  societies  has  apparently  been  to  promote 
individual  selfishness,  a  leading  feature  of  this  prog- 
ress having  been  the  change  in  the  base  from  which 
the  struggle  for  existence  takes  place,  so  that  it  has 
come  to  be  waged  less  and  less  between  the  societies, 
and  more  and  more  between  the  individuals  compris- 
ing them.  We  have  observed  also  how  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  individual,  enabling  him  to  utilise  to  the 
fullest  advantage  in  a  free  rivalry  with  his  fellows, 
every  ability  with  which  he  has  been  endowed,  has 
been  the  object  of  all  modern  legislation  ;  and  we 
have  had  to  note  that  the  ideal  towards  which  all  the 
advanced  nations  are  apparently  travelling  is  a  state 
of  society  in  which  every  individual  shall,  without  dis- 
advantage in  respect  of  birth,  privilege,  or  position, 
start  fair  in  this  rivalry,  and  obtain  the  fullest  possible 
development  of  his  own  personality. 


vii  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  169 

All  this,  it  would  appear,  must  tend  to  exalt  the 
individual's  regard  for  himself,  and  must  denote  an 
accompanying  tendency  to  weaken  rather  than  to 
strengthen  the  altruistic  feelings.  Attention  is  in- 
deed not  infrequently  directed  to  this  feature  by  a 
certain  class  of  writers  who  profess  to  view  it  with 
apprehension  and  alarm,  and  individual  and  class 
selfishness  is  not  infrequently  spoken  of  as  the  great 
evil  of  the  age  which  casts  an  ominous  shadow  over 
the  future. 

Yet,  making  due  allowance  for  all  these  considera- 
tions, we  are,  nevertheless,  met  by  the  fact  that  there 
undoubtedly  has  been  a  great  development  of  the 
humanitarian  feelings  amongst  us.  The  strengthen- 
ing and  deepening  which  they  have  undergone,  has 
also  all  the  appearance  of  being  one  of  the  vital  pro- 
cesses in  progress  in  our  civilisation.  No  student  of 
European  history  can  fail  to  observe  that  throughout 
the  whole  period  there  has  been  a  gradual  but  continu- 
ous growth  of  these  feelings  amongst  the  Western 
races  ;  that  they  have  reached  their  highest  develop- 
ment in  the  period  in  which  we  are  living ;  and  that 
this  development,  and  the  change  in  character  which 
has  accompanied  it,  has  proceeded  furthest  amongst 
the  most  advanced  races. 

The  nature  and  meaning  of  the  process  which  is 
going  on  appears  to  be  little  understood,  even  by 
writers  of  authority.  The  confusion  of  ideas  to 
which  the  tendencies  of  the  time  give  rise  finds 
remarkable  expression  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  writ- 
ings. In  the  Data  of  Ethics,  the  author,  in  attempting 
to  reconcile  the  undoubted  tendency  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  altruistic  feelings  in  our  civilisation  on 


170  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  one  hand,  with  the  equally  undoubted  tendency 
to  the  development  of  the  individualistic  feelings  on 
the  other,  presents  the  curious  spectacle  of  providing 
one  party  with  a  set  of  arguments  in  favour  of  social- 
ism, and  another  party  with  an  equally  good  set  of 
arguments  in  favour  of  individualism  ;  while  he  has 
himself  pictured  the  reconciliation  of  the  two  tenden- 
cies in  a  future  society  which  the  Darwinian,  it  must 
be  confessed,  can  only  imagine  as  existing  in  a  state 
of  progressive  degeneration.1 

What  then  is  the  significance  of  the  extraordinary 
development  which  the  humanitarian  feelings  are 
attaining  in  our  civilisation  ?  The  evidences  as  to 
the  extent  of  this  development  are  remarkable.  The 
growth  of  benevolent  institutions  is  a  characteristic 
of  the  age,  and,  although  it  is  not  as  convincing  as 
other  evidence,  it  is  a  very  striking  feature.  Eng- 
land, the  United  States,  and  other  countries,  are 
overspread  with  a  network  of  institutions  founded  or 
supported  by  the  contributions  of  private  individuals. 
The  annual  revenue  of  the  private  charities  of  Lon- 
don alone  is  close  on  ,£5,000,000,  or  equal  to  the 
entire  public  revenue  of  some  of  the  smaller  states. 


1  See,  in  particular,  chapters  xiii.  and  xiv.  of  his  Data  of  Ethics. 
Mr.  Spencer  recognises  clearly  "  that  social  evolution  has  been  bringing 
about  a  state  in  which  the  claims  of  the  individual  to  the  proceeds  of 
his  activities,  and  to  such  satisfactions  as  they  bring  are  more  and  more 
positively  asserted."  The  other  tendency  is  equally  unmistakable.  "  If 
we  consider  what  is  meant  by  the  surrender  of  power  to  the  masses,  the 
abolition  of  class  privileges,  the  efforts  to  diffuse  knowledge,  the  agita- 
tions to  spread  temperance,  the  multitudinous  philanthropic  societies, 
it  becomes  clear  that  regard  for  the  wellbeing  of  others  is  increasing 
pari  passu  with  the  taking  of  means  to  secure  personal  wellbeing  " 
(Chap.  xiii.). 


vti  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  171 

Associations  and  corporations  for  giving  effect  to 
philanthropic  purposes  are  innumerable,  and  scarcely 
a  week  passes  that  fresh  additions  are  not  made  to 
their  number.  It  is  to  a  large  extent  the  same  in 
other  countries  included  in  our  Western  civilisation, 
and  appearances  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  most 
progressive  societies  are  not  behind  the  others  in 
this  respect,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  they  have  made 
most  advance  in  this  direction  also. 

Still,  it  is  not  these  results,  noteworthy  though 
they  be,  which  furnish  the  most  important  evidence 
as  to  the  development  which  the  altruistic  feelings 
have  attained  in  our  time.  This  is  to  be  marked 
more  particularly  in  a  widespread  interest  in  the  wel- 
fare of  others,  which  exhibits  itself  in  a  variety  of 
less  obtrusive  forms.  There  may  be  noticed  in  par- 
ticular the  extraordinary  sensitiveness  of  the  public 
mind  amongst  the  advanced  peoples  to  wrong  or 
suffering  of  any  kind.  One  of  the  strongest  influ- 
ences prompting  the  efforts  which  the  British  nation 
has  persistently  (although  quite  thanklessly  and  un- 
obtrusively) made  towards  the  suppression  of  the 
slave  trade,  has  been  the  impression  produced  by 
accounts  of  the  cruelties  and  degradation  imposed  on 
the  slaves.  In  like  manner  the  effect  produced  on 
the  minds  of  the  British  people  by  descriptions  of  the 
wrongs  and  sufferings  of  oppressed  nationalities  has 
been  one  of  the  most  powerful  influences  affecting 
the  foreign  policy  of  England  throughout  the  nine- 
teenth century ;  and  any  close  student  of  our  politics 
during  this  period  would  have  to  note  that  this  influ- 
ence, so  far  as  the  will  of  the  people  found  expres- 
sion through  the  government  in  power,  has  been  a 


172  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

far  more  potent  factor  in  shaping  that  policy  than 
any  clear  conception  of  those  far-reaching  political 
motives  so  often  attributed  to  the  British  nation  by 
other  countries. 

Evidence  still  more  conclusive,  although  of  a  differ- 
ent kind,  is  to  be  found  in  that  mirror  of  our  daily 
life  which  the  press  furnishes.  No  one  can  closely 
follow  from  day  to  day  that  living  record,  so  faithfully 
reflecting  the  feelings  and  opinions  of  the  period, 
without  becoming  profoundly  conscious  of  the  strength 
and  importance  of  the  altruistic  feelings  at  the  present 
time.  Appeals  in  respect  of  injury,  outrage,  or  wrong 
suffered  by  any  particular  class  have  become  one  of 
the  strongest  political  forces,  and  may  sometimes  be 
observed  to  be  more  effective  than  even  direct  ap- 
peals to  private  selfishness.  We  may  notice  too,  that 
when,  from  time  to  time  in  the  daily  life  of  the  people, 
the  feelings  to  which  such  appeals  are  made  become 
focussed  on  individual  cases,  the  habits  of  restraint 
acquired  under  free  institutions  are  often  insufficient 
to  prevent  the  humanitarian  impulses  from  over- 
mastering those  habits  of  sober  judgment  so  readily 
exercised  in  other  circumstances  by  large  masses  of 
the  people. 

In  smaller  but  not  less  important  matters  the  indi- 
cations are  equally  striking.  The  record  in  the  press 
of  a  case  of  death  from  starvation  sends  a  tremor 
which  may  almost  be  felt  through  the  community. 
It  is  not  that  the  sensitiveness  of  the  public  mind  in 
such  cases  is  shown  by  noisy  denunciation ;  it  is  those 
hesitating  heart-searching  comments  —  frequently  so 
pathetically  misdirected  —  which  the  circumstance 
oftenest  evokes,  that  are  so  eloquent  and  so  significant. 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  173 

We  have  become,  too,  not  only  sensitive  to  physical 
suffering,  but  to  the  mental  suffering  which  the  moral 
degradation  of  our  fellows  implies.  One  of  the  most 
remarkable  movements  of  the  period,  in  some  respects, 
has  been  the  agitation  successfully  carried  on  in  Eng- 
land against  the  laws  requiring  the  state  regulation 
of  vice  ;  and  one  of  the  leading  factors  which  gave 
strength  to  this  agitation,  and  which  tended  to  render 
it  eventually  successful,  was  undoubtedly  the  feeling 
of  abhorrence  produced  in  the  minds  of  a  large  sec- 
tion of  the  public  by  the  degradation  which  these  laws 
publicly  imposed  on  a  section  of  our  fellow-creatures. 
Moreover,  this  extreme  sensitiveness  to  misery  or 
suffering  in  others  appears  to  be  extending  outwards 
in  a  gradually  widening  circle.  We  do  not  allow  un- 
merited suffering  to  be  imposed  even  on  animals ; 
bear-baiting,  dog-fighting,  badger-baiting,  cock-fight- 
ing, have  one  after  another  disappeared  from  amongst 
us  within  recent  times,  suppressed  by  public  senti- 
ment rather  than  by  law.  The  action  of  these  feel- 
ings may  also  be  traced  more  or  less  directly  in  many 
of  the  movements  peculiar  to  our  time.  The  opinion 
in  favour  of  vegetarianism  has  drawn  its  strength,  to 
a  considerable  extent,  from  the  feeling  of  repugnance 
which  the  idea  of  the  infliction  of  death  or  suffering 
on  the  animals  which  provide  us  with  food  inspires  in 
many  minds.  The  century  has  seen  the  rise  of  the 
well-known  and  successful  British  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals ;  and  similar  asso- 
ciations have  been  founded  and  have  taken  root  all 
over  the  English-speaking  world,  and  to  some  extent 
elsewhere.  We  have  even  to  note  how  the  same  feel- 
ings have,  within  the  lifetime  of  the  present  genera- 


174  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

tion,  proved  sufficiently  strong  in  England  to  secure 
the  passing  of  a  law  against  vivisection,  forbidding 
(except  in  duly  authorised  cases  and  under  certain 
restrictions),  the  infliction  of  suffering  upon  animals 
even  in  the  cause  of  science  ;  and,  what  is  perhaps 
more  remarkable,  we  have  seen  public  opinion  moved, 
as  it  often  is,  by  an  instinct  sounder  than  the  argu- 
ments used  in  support  of  it,  insisting  on  the  strict 
enforcement  of  this  law  in  the  face  of  authoritative 
protests  which  have  been  made  against  it.1 

The  contrast  which  all  this  presents  to  the  utter 
indifference  to  suffering  which  prevailed  amongst  the 
ancients,  and  which  survived,  to  some  extent,  among 
ourselves   down   to  a  comparatively  recent  date,  is 

1  The  arguments  which  have  been  used  on  both  sides  of  this  question 
have  a  special  interest,  inasmuch  as  they  serve  to  bring  out  in  a  striking 
light  that  general  absence,  already  remarked  upon,  of  any  clear  concep- 
tion as  to  what  the  function  of  the  altruistic  feelings  really  is.  The 
opponents  of  vivisection  have  hitherto  largely  based  their  case  on  the 
peculiar  ground  of  the  alleged  absence  of  any  considerable  benefit  to 
medical  science  from  the  practice.  The  advocates  of  vivisection  on  the 
other  hand  have  based  their  case  on  the  equally  precarious  ground  that, 
because  the  benefits  to  medical  science  have  been  large,  obstacles  should 
not  be  placed  in  the  way  of  vivisection.  If  is  evident,  however,  that 
neither  side  touches  what  is  the  real  question  at  issue.  If  society  is 
asked  to  permit  vivisection,  the  only  question  it  has  to  decide  is,  whether 
the  benefits  it  may  receive  from  the  practice  through  the  furtherance  of 
medical  science  (even  admitting  them  to  be  considerable),  outweigh  the 
injury  it  may  receive  through  the  weakening  of  the  altruistic  feelings 
which  it  tends  to  outrage.  The  reason,  however,  why  the  question  is 
not  usually  put  thus  directly  and  simply  in  the  controversial  literature 
which  this  subject  so  plentifully  provokes,  is,  apparently,  that  we  have 
no  clear  apprehension  as  to  what  the  real  function  of  the  altruistic  feel- 
ings is.  Their  immense  importance  is  accordingly  justified  by  instinct 
rather  than  by  reason,  and  consequently  such  justification  comes  almost 
exclusively  from  that  section  of  the  population  where  the  social  instincts 
are  healthiest. 


vii  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  175 

very  striking.  Amongst  the  early  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans the  utmost  callousness  and  brutality  were  dis- 
played towards  persons  outside  the  ties  of  relationship 
or  dependency.  We  can  hardly  realise  the  brutal  self- 
ishness which  prevailed  even  within  those  ties.  In- 
fanticide was  a  general  practice.  Even  old  age  was 
not,  as  a  rule,  respected  amongst  the  Greeks.  Says 
Mr.  Mahaffy,  "the  most  enlightened  Greeks  stood 
nearer,  I  fear,  to  the  savages  of  the  present  day,  who 
regard  without  respect  or  affection  every  human  being 
who  has  become  useless  in  the  race  of  life  or  who 
even  impedes  the  course  of  human  affairs.  We  know 
that  at  Athens  actions  of  children  to  deprive  their 
parents  of  control  of  property  were  legal  and  com- 
monly occurring,  nor  do  we  hear  that  medical  evi- 
dence of  imbecility  was  required.  It  was  only  among 
a  few  conservative  cities  like  Sparta,  and  a  few  excep- 
tionally refined  men  like  Plato,  that  the  nobler  and 
kindlier  sentiment  prevailed."  *  Compared  with  ours 
even  the  noblest  Greek  ethics  were  of  the  narrowest 
kind ;  and  Greek  morality,  as  already  observed,  at  no 
period  embraced  any  conception  of  humanity. 

Finally,  we  have  to  remark  that  there  is  no  justifi- 
cation for  regarding  the  change  in  progress  in  our 
time,  as  indicating  that  we  are  undergoing  a  kind  of 
deterioration,  or  as  evidence  that  we  are  becoming 
effeminate  and  less  able  to  bear  the  stress  of  life  than 
formerly.  There  are  no  real  grounds  for  such  a  sup- 
position. We  show  no  signs  of  effeminacy  in  other 
respects.  On  the  contrary  it  is  amongst  the  peoples 
who  are  most  vigorous  and  virile,  and  amongst  whom 
the  stress  is  severest,  that  the  change  is  most  notice- 

1  Social  Life  in  Greece,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy,  chap.  v. 


176  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

able.  It  is  amongst  the  races  that  are  winning  the 
greatest  ascendency  in  the  world  that  this  softening 
process  has  proceeded  furthest.  The  phenomenon 
of  the  development  of  the  altruistic  feelings  presents 
well-marked  features  ;  it  has  been  persistent  and  con- 
tinuous throughout  a  prolonged  period ;  it  has  pro- 
gressed furthest  amongst  the  most  advanced  peoples ; 
and  it  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  closely  asso- 
ciated in  some  way  with  the  progress  we  are  making 
in  other  directions.  What  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is 
the  import  of  this  development  ?  What  is  the  func- 
tion of  the  humanitarian  feelings  in  that  process  of 
expansion  which  is  peculiar  to  our  civilisation  ?  In 
what  lies  the  significance  of  that  deepening  and 
softening  of  character  which  has  long  been  in  prog- 
ress amongst  the  Western  peoples  ? 

At  the  risk  of  repetition,  it  is  essential  to  once 
more  briefly  revert  to  the  distinguishing  features  of 
that  social  transformation  which  has  been  slowly  tak- 
ing place  in  our  Western  civilisation.  The  clue  to 
this  process  we  found  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  it  has 
consisted  essentially  in  the  gradual  breaking  down  of 
that  military  organisation  of  society  which  had  pre- 
viously prevailed,  and  in  the  emancipation  and  enfran- 
chisement of  the  great  body  of  the  people  hitherto 
universally  excluded  under  that  constitution  of  so- 
ciety from  all  participation  on  equal  terms  in  the 
rivalry  of  existence.  From  a  remote  time  down  into 
the  period  in  which  we  are  living,  we  have  witnessed 
a  continuous  movement  in  this  direction.  The  prog- 
ress may  not  have  been  always  visible  to  the  cur- 
rent generation  amongst  whom  the  rising  waves  surge 
backwards  and  forwards  ;  but,  looking  back  over  our 


vii  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  177 

history,  we  mark  unmistakably  the  unceasing  on- 
ward progress  of  the  slowly-advancing  tide.  This 
movement  we  have  seen  resulting  in  that  free  play 
of  forces  within  the  community  which  has  produced 
the  modern  world.  And  it  tends  to  culminate  in  a 
condition  of  society  in  which  there  shall  be  no  priv- 
ileged classes,  and  in  which  all  the  excluded  people 
shall  be  at  last  brought  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  a 
footing  of  equality  of  opportunity — the  significance 
of  the  whole  process  consisting  in  its  tendency  to  raise 
the  rivalry  of  existence  to  the  highest  degree  of 
efficiency  as  a  cause  of  progress  to  which  it  has  ever 
attained  in  the  history  of  life. 

Now  the  prevailing  impression  concerning  this  pro- 
cess of  evolution,  is  that  it  has  been  the  product  of 
an  intellectual  movement,  and  that  it  has  been  the 
ever-increasing  intelligence  and  enlightenment  of  the 
people  which  has  constituted  the  principal  propelling 
force.  It  would  appear,  however,  that  we  must  reject 
this  view.  From  the  nature  of  the  case  the  intel- 
lect could  not  have  supplied  any  force  sufficiently 
powerful  to  have  enabled  the  people  to  have  success- 
fully assailed  the  almost  impregnable  position  of  the 
power-holding  classes.  So  enormous  has  been  the 
resistance  to  be  overcome,  and  so  complete  has  been 
the  failure  of  the  people  in  similar  circumstances  out- 
side our  civilisation,  that  we  must  look  elsewhere  for 
the  cause  which  has  produced  the  transformation. 
The  motive  force  we  must  apparently  find  in  the  im- 
mense fund  of  altruistic  feeling  with  which  our  West- 
ern societies  have  become  equipped ;  this  being,  with 
the  extraordinarily  effective  sanctions  behind  it,  the 
characteristic  and  determinative  product  of  the  relig- 


178  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

ious  system  upon  which  our  civilisation  is  founded. 
It  is  the  disintegrating  influence  of  this  fund  of  altru- 
ism in  our  civilisation  that  has  undermined  the  posi- 
tion of  the  power-holding  classes.  It  is  the  resulting 
deepening  and  softening  of  character  amongst  us 
which  alone  has  made  possible  that  developmental 
movement  whereby  all  the  people  are  being  slowly 
brought  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  equal  conditions. 
And  in  the  eyes  of  the  evolutionist,  it  is  by  contribut- 
ing the  factor  which  has  rendered  this  unique  process 
of  social  development  possible,  that  the  Christian 
religion  has  tended  to  raise  the  peoples  affected  by  it 
to  the  commanding  place  they  have  come  to  occupy 
in  the  world.  Let  us  see  how  this  remarkable  devel- 
opment has  proceeded. 

The  first  great  epoch  in  the  history  of  this  process 
was  that  which  marked  the  extinction  of  slavery. 
There  is  scarcely  any  one  feature  of  our  modern  civil- 
isation of  greater  significance  to  the  evolutionist  than 
the  absence  of  this  institution.  The  abolition  of 
slavery  has  been  one  of  the  greatest  strides  forward 
ever  taken  by  the  race.  The  consequences,  direct 
and  indirect,  have  been  immense,  and  even  now  we 
habitually  under-rate  rather  than  over-rate  its  effects 
and  importance.  Slavery  became  extinct  in  Europe 
about  the  fourteenth  century,  but  had  the  institution 
continued  after  the  break-up  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
modern  civilisation  would  never  have  been  born ;  we 
should  still  be  living  in  a  world  with  the  fetters  of 
militancy  hopelessly  riveted  upon  us ;  social  freedom 
and  equality  would  be  unknown ;  trade,  commerce, 
and  manufactures,  as  they  now  exist,  could  not  have 
been  developed,  and  the  few  engaged  in  such  occupa- 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  179 

tions  would  have  been  despised.  The  friction  of  mind 
against  mind  which  has  produced  modern  science  and 
its  multifarious  applications  to  the  needs  of  life  would 
never  have  arisen  ;  industrialism  would  have  been 
unknown  ;  and  the  degrading  and  retarding  influences 
of  a  rule  of  brute  force  would  have  been  felt  in  every 
department  of  life. 

Yet,  although  it  is  difficult  to  realise  it  in  the  midst 
of  our  civilisation,  slavery  is  one  of  the  most  natural 
and,  from  many  points  of  view,  one  of  the  most  rea- 
sonable of  institutions.  Professor  Freeman  regarded 
it  almost  as  a  necessary  condition  of  a  pure  democracy 
of  the  Greek  type,  in  which  the  individual  free  citizen 
was  "  educated,  worked  up,  and  improved  to  the  high- 
est possible  pitch."  1  What  may  be  called  the  intel- 
lectual case  against  slavery  has  nearly  always  run  on 
the  same  lines.  From  this  point  of  view  it  is  capable 
of  the  clearest  proof  that  slavery  is  hurtful  in  the 
long-run  to  the  welfare  of  the  people  amongst  whom 
it  prevails.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  such 
arguments  have  never  been  of  the  slightest  practical 
importance;  for,  as  already  maintained  elsewhere, 
men  in  such  circumstances  are  everywhere  dominated, 
not  by  calculations  of  the  supposed  effects  of  their 
acts  or  their  institutions  on  unborn  generations,  but 
by  more  immediate  considerations  of  their  own  per- 
sonal advantage.  It  must  be  remembered  also  that 
the  tendency  of  intellectual  progress  must  always  be 
to  make  it  clear  that  under  all  the  forms  of  the  high- 
est civilisation,  the  process  tending  to  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  and  the  worsting  of  the  least  efficient,  goes 
on  as  surely  and  as  steadily  as  under  any  other  system 

1  Vide  History  of  Federalism,  vol.  i.  chap.  ii. 


180  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

of  social  organisation.  The  intellect  alone  can,  in 
such  circumstances,  never  be  expected  to  furnish  any- 
strong  condemnation  of  those  who,  knowing  them- 
selves to  be  the  stronger  and  more  efficient,  and  feel- 
ing their  interest  in  the  conditions  of  existence  to  be 
bounded  by  the  limited  span  of  individual  human  life, 
should  take  this  short  and  direct  road  and  utilise  the 
superiority  with  which  they  have  been  equipped  to 
their  own  immediate  advantage,  rather  than  to  that 
of  unknown  and  unborn  generations. 

In  dealing  with  inferior  races  when  removed  from 
the  environment  of  Western  civilisation,  it  has,  in- 
deed, been  the  consistent  experience  of  all  European 
peoples  that  the  influence  of  inherited  conceptions, 
and  of  centuries  of  training,  has  not  been  sufficient 
to  keep  in  check  this  feeling  as  to  the  inherent  natu- 
ralness of  slavery .  We  must  not  forget  that  the  in- 
stitution has  flourished  down  almost  into  our  own 
times  under  the  auspices  of,  and  in  the  midst  of  an 
Anglo-Saxon  community  in  the  Southern  States  of 
the  North  American  continent ;  and  the  subsequent 
painful  history  of  the  negro  question  in  the  United 
States  only  brings  out  in  strong  light  the  strength 
and  even  reasonableness  of  the  feeling  upon  which 
slavery  was  founded — always,  of  course,  restricting 
our  view  to  the  immediate  local  interests  of  the 
stronger  of  the  two  parties  envisaged. 

We  are  apt  to  consider  the  abolition  of  slavery 
as  the  result  of  an  intellectual  movement.  But  he 
would  be  a  bold  man  who,  with  a  clear  apprehension 
of  the  forces  that  have  been  at  work,  would  undertake 
to  prove  that  slavery  was  abolished  through  the  march 
of  the  intellect.     It  is  not  held  in  check  even  at  the 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  181 

present  time  by  forces  set  in  motion  by  the  intellect. 
Its  extinction  is,  undoubtedly,  to  be  regarded  as  one 
of  the  first  of  the  peculiar  fruits  of  that  ethical  move- 
ment upon  which  our  civilisation  is  founded.  The 
two  doctrines  which  contributed  most  to  producing 
the  extinction  of  slavery  were  the  doctrine  of  salva- 
tion and  the  doctrine  of  the  equality  of  all  men  before 
the  Deity — both  being  essentially  ultra-rational.  The 
doctrine  of  salvation,  in  particular,  proved  at  an  early 
stage  to  be  one  of  the  most  powerful  solvents  ever 
applied  to  the  minds  of  men.  The  immense  and 
incalculable  importance  that  the  welfare  of  even  the 
meanest  creature  acquired  for  his  soul's  sake  possessed 
an  unusual  social  significance.  It  tended  from  the 
beginning  to  weaken  degrading  class  distinctions, 
and  it  immediately  raised  even  the  slave  to  a  position 
of  native  dignity.  The  conception  of  the  equality  of 
all  men  before  the  Deity,  which  such  a  doctrine  sup- 
plemented, was  also  of  profound  importance  and  in 
an  even  wider  sense.  The  theoretical  conception  to 
which  it  gave  rise  that  all  men  are  born  equal  (an 
assumption  which,  it  must  be  remembered,  receives 
no  sanction  from  science  or  experience)  has  been 
throughout  one  of  the  most  characteristic  products 
of  our  civilisation,  and  it  has  played  a  large  part  in 
that  process  of  expansion  through  which  the  Western 
peoples  have  passed. 

The  abolition  of  slavery  was,  however,  only  the  first 
step  in  the  evolutionary  process.  The  others  possess 
even  greater  interest.  We  may  observe  in  European 
history  the  peculiar  manner  in  which  the  development 
which  is  gradually  bringing  all  the  people  into  the 
rivalry  of  life  on  conditions  of  equality  has  proceeded. 


182  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

In  the  countries  where  it  has  taken  place  in  a 
regular  manner,  it  is  not  so  much  the  concentration 
and  determination  of  the  advance  of  the  people  that 
is  noticeable.  We  observe  rather  how  the  classes 
in  power  have  been  steadily  retreating,  and  extending 
the  privileges  of  their  own  position  in  greater  measure 
to  larger  and  larger  numbers  of  the  outside  classes. 
The  change  has  taken  place  slowly  at  first,  but  more 
rapidly  as  we  approach  our  own  times,  and  it  is  pro- 
ceeding most  rapidly  of  all  in  the  period  in  which  we 
are  living.  Our  histories  are  filled  with  descriptions 
of  phases  of  this  movement,  and  with  theories  and 
explanations  of  the  causes  which  have  been  at  work 
in  producing  these  local  manifestations.  But  the 
evolutionist  sooner  or  later  sees  that  the  influences 
which  have  produced  these  merely  subsidiary  eddies 
are  not  the  prime  cause,  and  that  there  must  be  one 
common  cause  operating  progressively  and  over  a 
prolonged  period  in  which  all  these  subordinate  phe- 
nomena' have  their  origin. 

There  can  scarcely  be  any  doubt  as  to  where  we 
must  look  for  this.  It  arises  from  the  development 
of  the  same  influence  that  abolished  slavery.  It  is 
to  be  found  in  that  great  fund  of  altruistic  feeling 
generated  by  the  ethical  system  upon  which  our  civ- 
ilisation is  founded.  It  is  this  which  provides  the 
prime  motive  force  behind  the  whole  series  of  polit- 
ical and  social  phenomena  peculiar  to  our  civilisation 
which  we  include  together  under  the  general  head  of 
"  progress."  But  the  manner  in  which  the  cause 
operates  is  little  understood. 

It  is  in  the  main  a  correct  insight  which  has  led  so 
many  writers  of  the  advanced  school  to  regard  the 


vii  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  183 

French  Revolution  as  the  objective  starting-point  of 
the  modern  world.  It  is  not  that  the  Revolution  has 
in  any  way  added  to  or  taken  from  the  developmental 
forces  that  are  shaping  this  world.  It  is  simply  that 
causes,  for  the  most  part  local  and  exceptional,  which 
did  not  occur  amongst  peoples  whose  development 
had  taken  a  more  regular  course,  there  contributed 
to  bring  face  to  face  the  old  spirit  and  the  new  in 
extreme  contrast  and  opposition,  and  in  a  situation 
fraught  to  the  most  extraordinary  degree  with  human 
interest. 

No  one  can  rise  from  the  study  of  this  remarkable 
period  without  feeling,  however  dimly,  that  he  has 
been  watching  the  operation  of  a  force  utterly  unlike 
any  of  which  the  ancient  world  had  experience —  a 
force  which,  though  peculiar  to  our  civilisation  from 
the  beginning,  here,  for  the  first  time  manifested 
itself  in  a  striking  and  clearly-defined  manner  in 
European*  history.  Not  to  realise  the  nature  of  this 
force  is  to  misunderstand,  not  only  the  Revolution, 
but  all  current  political  and  social  history  amongst 
ourselves  and  all  other  sections  of  the  advanced 
European  peoples.  At  the  time  of  the  Revolution 
nothing  so  powerfully  impressed  the  spectator  as  the 
irresistible  advance  of  the  people ;  at  this  distance  of 
time  nothing  causes  so  much  wonder  as  their  weak- 
ness. They  were  without  weapons,  without  organisa- 
tion, without  definite  aims.  Even  their  leaders  were 
but  the  representatives  of  different  and,  in  many 
cases,  utterly  antagonistic  currents  of  thought  which 
met  and  surged  wildly  together,  and  which,  while 
struggling  amongst  themselves  for  mastery,  were 
swept  onwards  by  deeper  and  obscurer  forces  over 


184  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

which  these  leaders  had  no  control,  and  which  they 
did  not  themselves  understand. 

The  strength  of  the  people  apparently  lay  in  their 
enthusiasm.  This,  in  its  turn,  was  the  product  of  the 
sense  of  pity  for  themselves  and  for  each  other  in  the 
state  of  profound  misery  and  degradation  in  which 
they  found  themselves ;  and  it  was  rendered  the  more 
intense  by  the  contrast  their  lives  presented  in  com- 
parison with  those  of  the  classes  above  them  in  the 
social  scale.  But  although  this  situation,  and  the 
state  of  things  which  led  up  to  it,  has  been  ably  and 
accurately  described  by  many  writers,  we  do  not 
reach,  through  details  of  this  kind,  however  accurate 
and  exhaustive,  the  inner  significance  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. It  was  no  new  spectacle  in  history  for  the 
people  to  rise  against  their  masters.  They  had  often 
done  so  before,  and  they  had  almost  invariably  been 
driven  back  to  their  tasks.  The  odds  which  might 
have  been  utilised  against  them  were  enormous. 
Why,  therefore,  were  they  successful  on  this  occa- 
sion ;  and  why  is  the  Revolution  to  all  appearance, 
and  for  this  reason,  the  beginning  of  a  new  world  ? 
It  is  not  until  we  look  at  the  other  side  that  we  begin 
to  understand  the  nature  of  the  force  on  the  side  of 
the  people  which  is  peculiar  to  our  civilisation. 

The  most  striking  spectacle  in  all  that  memorable 
period  was,  undoubtedly,  the  weakness  and  disorgani- 
sation of  the  party  representing  the  ruling  classes. 
It  has  been  the  custom  to  attribute  the  success  of  the 
Revolution  to  the  decay,  misrule,  and  corruption  of 
these  classes  ;  but  history,  while  recognising  these 
causes,  will  probably  regard  them  as  but  incidental. 
Its  calmer  verdict  must  be,  that  it  was  in  the  hearts 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  185 

of  these  classes  and  not  in  the  streets  that  the  cause 
of  the  people  was  won.  It  is  impossible,  even  at  this 
distance  of  time,  to  observe  without  a  feeling  of  won- 
der and  even  of  awe,  the  extent  to  which  the  ideas  of 
the  Revolution  had  undermined  the  position  of  the 
upper  classes.  Effective  resistance  was  impossible ; 
they  could  not  utilise  their  own  strength.  We  begin 
to  understand  this  slowly.  We  look  for  any  inspirit- 
ing appeal ;  for  any  rally  against  the  forces  arrayed 
against  them  ;  for  any  of  that  conscious  devotion  to 
a  worthy  cause  which  has  made  even  forlorn  hopes 
successful,  and  which  here,  in  the  presence  of  over- 
powering odds  against  the  people,  would  have  rendered 
their  opponents  irresistible.  But  we  look  in  vain. 
The  great  body  of  humanitarian  feeling  which  had 
been  slowly  accumulating  so  long  had  done  its  work; 
it  had  sapped  the  foundations  of  the  old  system. 
Elsewhere  the  transforming  agent  had  operated  by 
degrees,  and  the  result,  at  any  time,  had  been  less 
noticeable ;  here,  where  the  fabric  had  outwardly 
held,  it  had  all  gone  down  suddenly  and  completely, 
because  the  columns  which  had  supported  it  were 
deeply  affected  by  the  disintegrating  process.  The 
conceptions  of  which  the  Revolution  was  born  had 
given  enthusiasm  to  the  people,  and  even  a  certain 
cohesion  to  the  most  intractable  material.  But  their 
natural  opponents  were  without  either  enthusiasm  or 
cohesion ;  they  were  indirectly  almost  as  profoundly 
affected  as  the  people  by  the  force  which  was  recon- 
stituting the  world. 

A  fuller  and  franker  recognition  of  the  true  posi- 
tion occupied  at  this  period  by  the  nobility  and  power- 
holding  classes  in  France,  must  apparently  be  one  of 


186  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  features  of  the  work  of  the  future  historian  who 
would  do  justice  to  the  Revolution.  They  occupied 
a  position  almost  unique  in  history,  large  numbers  of 
them  being,  as  Michelet  has  expressed  it,  at  once  the 
heirs  and  the  enemies  of  their  own  cause.  "  Edu- 
cated in  the  generous  ideas  of  the  philosophy  of  the 
time,  they  applauded  that  marvellous  resuscitation  of 
mankind,  and  offered  up  prayers  for  it,  even  though 
it  cost  their  ruin."  *  It  is  easier  to  be  ironical,  like 
Carlyle,  than  to  attempt  to  do  justice,  like  Michelet, 
to  the  remarkable  spectacle  presented  by  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Assembly  on  the  night  of  the  4th  August 
1789,  when  feudalism  "after  a  reign  of  a  thousand 
years,  abdicates,  abjures,  and  condemns  itself."  The 
subject  lent  itself  admirably  to  Carlyle's  sarcastic  pen. 
"  A  memorable  night,  this  Fourth  of  August :  Dig- 
nitaries temporal  and  spiritual ;  Peers,  Archbishops, 
Parlement-President,  each  outdoing  the  other  in  pat- 
riotic devotedness,  come  successively  to  throw  their 
now  untenable  possessions  on  the  i  altar  of  the  father- 
land.' Louder  and  louder  vivats  —  for  indeed  it  is 
'  after  dinner  '  too  —  they  abolish  Tithes,  Seignorial 
Dues,  Gabelle,  excessive  Preservation  of  Game  ;  nay 
Privilege,  Immunity,  Feudalism  root  and  branch,  then 
appoint  a  Te  Deum  for  it,  and  so  finally  disperse 
about  three  in  the  morning  striking  the  stars  with 
their  sublime  heads."2  The  evolutionist  sees,  how- 
ever, no  cause  for  regarding  such  a  spectacle  as  any 
other  than  one  of  the  most  remarkable  that  human 
history  presents.  It  was  one  of  the  earlier  scenes  of 
the  Revolution.     But  never  before  had  the  power- 

1  Historical  View  of  the  French  Revolution,  Book  2,  chap.  iv. 

2  The  French  Revolution,  vol.  i.  Book  6,  chap.  ii. 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  187 

holding  classes  regarded  in  such  a  spirit  the  move- 
ment which  threatened  to  engulf  and  overwhelm 
them.  We  must  recognise  that  beneath  these  inci- 
dents, however  they  may  appear  to  move  the  irony 
of  the  recorder,  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  force 
different  in  character  from  any  that  moved  the  an- 
cient world,  a  force  which  had  indeed  rendered  the 
ancient  constitution  of  society  no  longer  possible. 

But  to  understand  the  significance  of  the  Revolu- 
tion and  the  real  nature  of  the  forces  which  produced 
it,  our  proper  standpoint  is  not  in  history,  nor  in  the 
events  of  the  past,  but  rather  in  the  midst  of  the 
strenuous  conflict  of  contemporary  life.  Nay,  more, 
we  shall  not  find  a  more  profitable  post  of  observa- 
tion from  which  to  study  the  forces  that  produced 
the  French  Revolution,  and  in  which  to  convince 
ourselves  of  the  continuity  and  unity  of  the  process 
of  development  which  the  Western  peoples  are  under- 
going, than  in  the  very  thick  of  the  current  political 
life  of  the  British  nation.  For  here,  in  the  midst  of 
a  people  whose  history  has  been,  so  far,  to  a  large 
extent  one  of  orderly  development,  we  stand  continu- 
ously in  the  actual  presence  of  that  force  which  is 
reconstituting  the  world,  and  observe  on  every  side, 
when  we  understand  the  nature  of  the  process  which 
is  proceeding,  the  potency  and  promise  of  further 
development  of  the  most  vigorous  and  transforming 
character. 

It  may  be  noticed,  if  we  observe  closely  the  politi- 
cal and  social  life  of  our  time,  that  most  of  the  com- 
plex forces  at  work  in  reality  range  themselves  on 
the  side  of  one  or  the  other  of  two  great  opposing 
parties.     On  one  side  we  have  that  party  which  is 


188  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

but  the  modern  liberalised  representative  of  that 
power-holding  class  already  referred  to.  In  the 
transition  from  the  military  to  the  industrial  type 
of  society  in  England  it  has  become  largely  trans- 
formed into  the  capitalist  class.  It  is  still  the  party 
of  wealth,  prestige,  leisure,  and  social  influence  and 
position.  On  the  other  sidewe«have  a  party  com- 
prised to  the  largest  extent  of  those  lower  in  the 
social  scale,  and  including  the  greater  part  of  those 
who  lead  toilsome,  strenuous  lives  for  the  least 
reward.  In  England,  where  the  course  of  social 
development  has  been  less  interrupted  by  disturbing 
influences  than  in  many  other  countries,  these  oppo- 
nents correspond  more  or  less  closely  to  the  two 
great  historic  parties  in  the  state.  In  France,  in  the 
United  States,  in  Germany,  and  in  other  countries 
we  have,  in  reality,  the  same  two  parties  no  less  dis- 
tinctly in  opposition,  although  local  and  particular 
causes  to  some  extent  prevent  them  from  thus  clearly 
confronting  each  other  continuously  and  all  along 
the  line  as  organised  political  forces. 

If  we  inquire  now  what  the  history  of  progressive 
legislation  has  been  during  a  long  period  extending 
down  into  our  own  times,  we  shall  find  that  it  pre- 
sents remarkable  features.  It  may  be  summed  up 
in  a  few  words.  It  is  simply  the  history  of  a  contin- 
uous series  of  concessions,  demanded  and  obtained 
by  that  party  which  is,  undoubtedly,  through  its  posi- 
tion, inherently  the  weaker  of  these  two  from  that 
power-holding  party  which  is  equally  unmistakably 
the  stronger.  There  is  no  break  in  the  series  ;  there 
is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  The  record  of  the  past 
is  undeniable ;  but  the  promise  of  the  future  is  not 


vii  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  189 

the  less  significant,  for  the  programmes  of  all  advanc- 
ing parties  consist  simply  of  further  demands,  which 
in  due  time  we  may  expect  to  see  met  in  like  man- 
ner with  further  concessions.  This  is  the  manner 
in  which  progress  is  being  made.  But  what,  it  may 
be  asked,  is  the  meaning  of  this  peculiar  and  note- 
worthy relationship  of  the  two  parties,  for  it  un- 
doubtedly presents  a  spectacle  which  is  altogether 
exceptional  in  the  history  of  the  world  ? 

One  of  the  explanations  most  frequently  offered  is 
that  the  situation  arises  from  the  unscrupulous  bid- 
ding of  politicians  for  power  and  office  under  our 
system  of  popular  government.  When,  however,  we 
look  into  the  matter  this  explanation  is  perceived  to 
be  insufficient  to  account  for  the  facts  of  the  situa- 
tion. Politicians  can,  in  the  first  place,  obtain  power 
only  from  those  who  have  it  to  bestow ;  and,  if  this 
explanation  was  correct,  the  series  of  concessions 
referred  to  could  only  have  been  obtained  —  had  the 
party  conceding  them  been  resolutely  unwilling  to 
grant  them  —  by  a  continuous  series  of  political  be- 
trayals by  this  party's  own  representatives.  We  do 
not,  however,  find  in  political  history  any  such  series 
of  betrayals  on  record.  Nor  is  it  to  be  expected  that 
such  a  condition  could  continue  as  one  of  the  normal 
features  of  public  life.  Another  explanation,  cur- 
rently offered,  is  that  the  result  is  caused  by  the 
growing  strength  and  intelligence  of  the  people's 
party  which  render  the  attack  irresistible.  But  we 
may  readily  perceive  that  the  increasing  strength 
and  intelligence  of  the  lower  classes  of  the  commu- 
nity is  the  result  of  the  change  which  is  in  progress, 
and  that  it  cannot,  therefore,  be  by  itself  the  cause. 


190  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

It  must  always  be  remembered  too  that  the  party 
from  which  the  concessions  are  being  won  is,  in  the 
nature  of  things  and  from  its  entrenched  position, 
even  still  immeasurably  the  stronger  of  the  two ; 
and  that  elsewhere,  outside  the  modern  period,  where 
the  two  classes  have  confronted  each  other,  the 
record  of  history  is  emphatic  to  the  effect  that  this 
party  has  always  ruthlessly  overmastered  the  other. 
There  must  evidently  be  some  other  operating  cause, 
large,  deep-seated,  and  constant,  which  is  producing 
this  gradual  orderly  change  in  the  relationship  of  the 
two  opponents. 

If  we  look  back  through  the  present  century  at  the 
great  movements  in  English  political  life,  which  have 
resulted  in  the  carrying,  one  after  another,  of  the 
numerous  legislative  measures  that  have  had  for 
their  object  the  emancipation  and  the  raising  of  the 
lower  classes  of  the  people,  it  will  be  perceived  that 
the  method  in  which  progress  has  been  produced  has 
always  been  the  same.  The  first  step  has  invariably 
been  the  formation  of  a  great  body  of  feeling  or  sen- 
timent in  favour  of  the  demand.  To  describe  this 
body  of  opinion  as  the  product  simply  of  class  selfish- 
ness would  show  lack  of  insight.  It  is  always  some- 
thing much  more  than  this.  If  it  be  closely  scruti- 
nised, it  will  generally  be  found  to  be  in  a  large 
degree  the  result  of  that  extreme  sensitiveness  of  the 
altruistic  feelings  to  stimulus  which  has  been  already 
noticed.  The  public  mind  has  become  so  intolerant 
of  the  sight  of  misery  or  wrong  of  any  kind  that,  as 
the  conditions  of  the  life  of  the  excluded  masses  of 
the  people  are  gradually  brought  under  discussion 
and  come  into  the  light,  this  feeling  of  intolerance 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  191 

slowly  gathers  force,  until  at  last  it  finds  expression 
in  that  powerful  body  of  opinion  or  sentiment  which 
has  been  behind  all  the  great  social  and  political 
reforms  of  our  time.1 

Even  amongst  those  classes  of  the  people  who 
must  immediately  profit  by  the  change,  the  impulses 
which  move  them  cannot,  with  truth,  be  described  as 
simply  selfish.  We  have  to  observe  that  the  feeling 
which  is,  at  the  present  time,  stirring  the  lower 
classes  in  most  lands  included  in  our  Western  civil- 
isation is  largely  a  sense  of  pity  for  each  other  and 
for  themselves  as  a  class  in  the  toilsome,  cheerless 
conditions  in  which  their  lives  are  cast ;  this  feeling 
being  strengthened  to  an  extraordinary  degree  by 
that  sense  of  the  innate  quality  of  all  men  which  has 
entered  so  deeply  into  the  minds  of  the  advanced 
European  peoples,  and  by  the  consciousness  of  the 
contrast  their  lives  nevertheless  present  to  those  at 
the  other  end  of  the  social  scale.  Into  the  body  of 
opinion  in  which  these  feelings  find  expression,  the 
element  of  sordid  private  selfishness  enters  to  a  far 
less  degree  than  is  commonly  supposed.  It  is,  as  a 
whole,  and  in  the  best  sense,  the  product  of  the  altru- 
istic feelings.  It  is  primarily  the  result  of  that  deep- 
ening of  character  which  has  been  in  progress  amongst 
us,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  demands  of  the 
masses  are  now  made,  and  must  continue  to  be  made, 
with  a  depth  of  conviction,  a  degree  of  resolution,  and 
a  sense  of  courage  which  mere  private  selfishness 
could  not  inspire,  and  which  render  them  in  the 
highest  degree  significant. 

1  The  press  and  all  the  machinery  of  communication  and  of  modern 
social  life  are,  of  course,  powerful  factors  in  concentrating  this  body  of 
opinion,  and  in  enabling  it  to  find  expression. 


192  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

But  it  is  only  when  we  come  to  fix  our  attention  on 
the  other  side,  on  that  party  from  which  the  conces- 
sions are  being  obtained,  and  which  is  in  retreat 
before  the  advancing  people,  that  we  become  fully 
conscious  of  the  peculiar  and  exceptional  nature  of 
the  phenomenon  we  are  regarding.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  this  party  is  the  present-day  representa- 
tive of  the  class  which  has  for  ages  successfully  held 
the  people  in  subjection,  which  has  erected  impreg- 
nable barriers  against  them,  which  has  throughout 
history  consistently  reserved  in  its  own  hands  all 
power  and  influence,  so  as  to  render  any  assault  on 
its  position  well-nigh  hopeless.  Nay,  more,  it  is  the 
party  which,  as  we  have  seen,  still  possesses  a  reserve 
of  strength  which  renders  it  inherently  immeasurably 
stronger  than  its  opponent.  Yet  by  a  long  list  of 
legislative  measures,  we  now  behold  this  same  party 
educating,  enfranchising,  and  equipping  its  opponent 
in  the  struggle  against  itself.  The  record  of  public 
life  for  the  past  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  is  an 
extraordinary  spectacle  in  this  respect,  and  it  is  only 
our  familiarity  with  the  currents  of  thought  in  our 
time  which  could  lead  us  to  forget  that  the  movement 
we  are  witnessing  is  one  which  is  quite  unique  in  the 
history  of  the  world. 

If  we  come  to  examine  closely  the  causes  at  work 
in  producing  this  result,  we  shall  find  that  they  all 
have  their  root  in  the  phenomenon  we  have  been  con- 
sidering. It  must  be  observed  that  the  fact  of  most 
significance  is  the  extent  to  which  this  deepening 
and  softening  of  the  character  has  progressed  among 
the  power-holding  class.  This  class  is  even  more 
affected   than   the   opposing   party.     The    result    is 


vii  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  193 

peculiar.  It  is  thereby  rendered  incapable  of  util- 
ising its  own  strength,  and  consequently  of  making 
any  effective  resistance  to  the  movement  which  is 
undermining  its  position.  All  heart  is,  in  fact,  taken 
out  of  its  opposition ;  men's  minds  have  become  so 
sensitive  to  suffering,  misery,  wrong,  and  degradation 
of  every  kind  that  it  cannot  help  itself.  As  light 
continues  to  be  let  in  on  the  dark  foundations  of  our 
social  system,  the  developmental  forces  do  their  work 
silently  but  effectively  in  strengthening  the  attack 
on  one  side  it  is  true ;  but  to  a  far  greater  and  more 
significant  extent  in  weakening  the  defence  on  the 
other  —  by  disintegrating  the  convictions  and  under- 
mining the  faith  of  the  defending  party. 

We  may  note  clearly  in  English  public  life  the 
different  effects  produced  on  different  sections  of  the 
retreating  party.  In  the  first  place,  a  considerable 
number  of  the  best  and  most  generous  minds  are 
affected.  The  effect  produced  on  these  is  such  that, 
instead  of  siding  with  the  class  to  which  by  tradition 
and  individual  interest  they  undoubtedly  belong,  they 
take  their  places  in  the  ranks  of  the  opponents.1     But 

1  The  leaders  of  the  masses  do  not  always  realise  the  nature  of  the 
forces  which  are  working  on  their  side,  and  they  sometimes  overlook 
how  much  they  owe  to  those  who  are  naturally  members  of  the  party 
to  which  they  are  opposed.  Mr.  Grant  Allen  has  lately  pointed  out 
that  the  chief  reformers  have  not,  as  a  rule,  come  from  the  masses. 
"  Most  of  the  best  Radicals  I  have  known,"  he  says,  "  were  men  of 
gentle  birth  and  breeding,"  although  others,  just  as  earnest,  just  as 
eager,  just  as  chivalrous,  sprang  from  the  masses.  It  is,  he  says,  a 
common  taunt  on  the  one  side  to  say  that  the  battle  is  one  between  the 
Haves  and  the  Have-nots.  But  that  is  by  no  means  true.  "  It  is 
between  the  selfish  Haves  on  the  one  side,  and  the  unselfish  Haves 
who  wish  to  see  something  done  for  the  Have-nots  on  the  other."  — 
Westminster  Gazette,  26th  April  1893. 


194  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

those  who  remain  are  not  less  significantly  affected. 
It  may  be  noticed  that  they  hardly  attempt  to  deny 
the  force  of  the  case  brought  against  them  by  their 
opponents ;  they  mostly  confine  their  defence  to 
arguing  that  things  are  not  really  so  bad  as  they  are 
represented  to  be,  that  there  is  exaggeration  and  mis- 
representation. And  at  worst,  and  as  a  last  resource, 
they  tend  to  fall  back  upon  science  to  say  that  even 
the  remedy  proposed  would  not  be  effective  in  the 
long-run,  and  that  matters  are,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  ultimately  irremediable. 

And  so  our  modern  progress  towards  the  equalisa- 
tion of  the  conditions  of  life  continues  to  be  made. 
It  is  not  so  much  the  determination  of  the  attack, 
although  it  is  both  firm  and  determined  as  far  as  may 
be ;  it  is  rather  that  through  the  all-pervading  influ- 
ence in  our  civilisation  of  that  immense  fund  of  altru- 
ism with  which  it  has  been  equipped,  the  occupying 
party  finds  its  faith  in  its  own  cause  undermined.  It 
possesses  no  firm  conviction  of  the  justice  of  its  posi- 
tion of  the  kind  necessary  to  maintain  that  position 
successfully  against  attack ;  it  has  agreed  upon  an 
orderly  retreat  ;  it  is  abandoning  its  outworks,  sur- 
rendering its  positions,  evacuating  its  entrenchments 
one  after  the  other  and  all  along  the  line.  This  is 
the  real  significance  of  the  remarkable  and  altogether 
exceptional  spectacle  presented  throughout  our  West- 
ern civilisation  at  the  present  day. 

If  we  look  round  now  at  all  the  great  social  and 
political  movements  which  are  in  progress,  it  may  be 
perceived  that  we  possess  the  key  to  our  times.  It 
is  in  this  softening  of  the  character,  in  this  deepening 
and  strengthening  of  the  altruistic  feelings,  with  their 


vii  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  195 

increased  sensitiveness  to  stimulus,  and  the  conse- 
quent ever-growing  sense  of  responsibility  to  each 
other,  that  we  have  the  explanation  of  all  the  social 
and  political  movements  which  are  characteristic  of 
the  period.  In  the  times  in  which  we  are  living, 
the  most  remarkable  product  of  this  spirit  is  that 
widespread  movement  affecting  the  working  classes 
throughout  Europe  and  America,  which  has  been 
described  as  the  "revolt  of  labour."  Of  all  the  devel- 
opments which  are  in  progress  at  the  end  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  it  is  the  most  important  because  the 
most  characteristic.  But,  like  all  other  social  move- 
ments that  have  preceded  it,  it  is  the  direct  product  of 
the  change  in  character  we  are  undergoing,  born  of  it 
in  due  time,  intimately  and  vitally  associated  with  it  at 
every  point,  incapable  of  any  success  or  even  of  any 
existence  apart  from  it.  It  has  been  the  custom  to 
attribute  the  progress  and  the  success  of  the  move- 
ment by  which  the  working  classes  have  already  ob- 
tained a  large  share  of  political  power  and  through 
which  they  are  now  laying  the  foundation  of  a  more 
equal  social  state,  to  a  variety  of  causes,  —  to  the 
spread  of  education,  to  the  growth  of  intelligence,  to 
development  of  the  influence  of  the  press,  to  the  prog- 
ress of  industrialism,  to  the  annihilation  of  space  by 
the  improved  means  of  communication  and  the  in- 
creased opportunities  for  organisation  resulting,  and, 
generally,  to  "  economic  tendencies "  of  all  kinds. 
But  it  is  primarily  due  to  none  of  these  things.  It 
has  its  roots  in  a  single  cause,  namely,  the  develop- 
ment of  the  humanitarian  feelings,  and  the  deepen- 
ing and  softening  of  character  that  has  taken  place 
amongst  the  Western  peoples. 


196  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

The  manner  in  which  the  cause  acts  will  be  imme- 
diately perceived  on  reflection.  The  working  classes 
are  indeed  themselves  keenly  alive  to  the  method  of 
its  operation.  It  may  be  constantly  noticed  in  the 
course  of  the  struggle  in  which  labour  is  engaged 
against  the  terms  of  the  capitalist  class,  and  more 
particularly  in  those  pitched  battles  which  occur  from 
time  to  time  in  the  form  of  strikes,  that  the  deter- 
mining factor  is  always  in  reality  public  opinion  ;  and, 
in  Great  Britain  at  least,  public  opinion  tends  to  be 
more  and  more  on  the  side  of  the  working  classes 
when  the  battle  is  fairly  conducted.  This  public 
opinion,  it  must  be  remarked  also,  is  by  no  means 
merely  the  opinion  of  those  sections  of  the  popula- 
tion which  might  be  expected  to  sympathise  with  the 
lower  masses  through  class-feeling  or  motives  of  class- 
selfishness  ;  it  includes  the  opinions  of  large  numbers 
of  individuals  of  all  classes,  not  excepting  many  whose 
interests,  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  would  tend  to 
be  favourably  affected  by  the  success  of  the  other 
party  engaged. 

It  is  the  same  if  we  look  round  in  other  directions. 
It  is  the  action  of  this  fund  of  altruistic  feeling  in  the 
community,  its  all-pervading  influence  on  every  one  of 
us,  and  the  resulting  sensitiveness  of  individual  and 
public  character  to  misery  or  wrong  inflicted  on  any 
one,  however  humble,  which  alone  renders  that  pro- 
cess of  social  development  which  is  going  on  around 
us  possible.  Without  it  our  laws  would  be  absurd, 
and  our  democratic  institutions  impossible.  Mr.  Her- 
bert Spencer  has  lately1  objected  to  the  English  and 
American  system  of  party  government,  on  the  ground 

1  Principles  of  Ethics. 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  197 

that  it  is  capable  of  lending  itself  to  a  one-man  or  a 
one-party  tyranny.  And  if  we  leave  out  of  account 
the  special  circumstances  of  our  times,  such  a  system 
of  government  does  seem  in  theory  one  of  the  most 
ridiculous  that  ever  existed.  Yet,  with  all  its  faults, 
and  despite  the  features  Mr.  Spencer  objects  to,  it 
proves  to  be,  in  practice,  one  of  the  most  perfect.  A 
system  which,  in  England,  allows  a  bare  majority  to 
rule  absolutely  would  appear  to  commit  small  minor- 
ities holding  opinions  differing  from  those  of  the  great 
majority  of  their  fellows  to  the  most  hopeless  form  of 
tyranny.  A  system  which  allows  a  bare  majority, 
when  it  attains  to  power,  to  reverse  all  the  acts  of  its 
opponents,  would,  in  a  community  where  party  feeling 
runs  high,  seem  to  be  an  ideal  system  for  securing 
political  chaos.  Yet  the  opinions  of  minorities  are 
treated  with  respect,  unknown  in  ancient  history,  and, 
in  Great  Britain  at  least,  the  acts  of  one  party  are 
never  reversed  by  its  successor.  But  the  reason  does 
not  exist  in  State  Constitutions ;  it  is  to  be  found  in 
this  extreme  sensitiveness  of  the  public  conscience 
to  wrong  or  unfairness.  Acts  which  are  considered 
wrong  could  not  be  attempted  with  impunity  by  any 
party,  for  it  would  find  itself  immediately  deserted  by 
its  own  supporters. 

It  is  here,  and  here  only,  that  we  stand  in  the  real 
presence  of  the  force  that  is  moving,  regulating,  and 
reconstructing  the  world  around  us,  without  which  our 
progress  would  cease,  and  our  forms  of  government  be 
unworkable.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  as  in  the 
case  of  slavery,  the  intellect  alone  can  never  furnish 
any  sanction  to  the  power-holding  classes  for  surrend- 
ering to  the  people  the  influence  and  position  which 


198  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

they  have  inherited.  If  the  teaching  of  the  intellect 
is  merely  that  the  process  tending  to  secure  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest,  and  the  elimination  of  the  least 
efficient,  goes  on  as  efficiently  under  all  the  forms  of 
the  highest  civilisation  as  elsewhere,  then,  to  repeat 
the  argument  already  used,  individual  reason  alone 
cannot  be  expected  to  furnish  any  condemnation  of 
those  who,  being  the  strongest,  and  regarding  their 
interests  enclosed  within  the  span  of  a  single  life- 
time, or  at  best  within  the  lifetime  of  a  few  gen- 
erations, should  utilise  their  strength  to  their  own 
advantage.  They  could  do  so  with  courage  and  con- 
viction. The  conception  of  the  native  equality  of 
men  which  has  played  so  great  a  part  in  the  social 
development  that  has  taken  place  in  our  civilisation 
is  essentially  irrational.  It  receives  no  sanction  from 
reason  or  experience ;  it  is  the  characteristic  product 
of  that  ultra-rational  system  of  ethics  upon  which  our 
civilisation  is  founded. 

We  have  only  to  imagine  the  development  of  the 
altruistic  feelings  which  has  taken  place  as  non-exist- 
ent to  realise  forcibly  the  immense  part  which  it  plays 
in  our  modern  societies.  If  we  can  picture  the  power- 
holding  classes  throughout  our  Western  civilisation 
again  filled  with  that  firm  belief  in  their  own  cause 
and  their  own  privileges,  and  that  contempt  for 
large  masses  of  their  fellow-creatures  which  prevailed 
among  the  "pure  democracies"  of  ancient  Greece, 
and  under  the  Roman  Republic  and  Empire,  we  shall 
have  no  difficulty  in  realising  what  a  feeble  barrier  all 
the  boasted  power  to  which  the  people  have  attained 
would  be  against  class  rule,  even  of  the  most  ruthless 
and  intolerant  kind.     The  rich  and  the  power-holding 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  199 

classes  would  be  able  even  now,  in  the  freest  and  most 
advanced  communities,  to  restrain,  arrest,  and  turn 
back  the  tide  of  progress.  All  the  liberties  and 
securities  of  the  most  extended  constitutional  Democ- 
racy would  be  no  more  than  the  liberties  and  securities 
of  the  Roman  Republic  were  to  Marius  or  to  Sylla 
before  the  rise  of  the  Empire.  All  the  power  of  the 
press ;  all  the  appliances  of  science ;  all  the  develop- 
ments of  industrialism ;  all  the  "  economic  tenden- 
cies "  which  are  now  held  to  make  for  the  influence 
of  the  people,  would,  in  such  circumstances,  prove, 
each  and  every  one,  but  effective  weapons  of  offence 
and  defence  in  the  hands  of  an  oppressive  oligarchy. 

If  the  mind  is  carried  a  short  distance  backwards, 
it  will  be  seen,  now,  that  the  more  essential  conclu- 
sions to  which  we  have  been  led  in  the  present  chap- 
ter are  as  follows.  First,  that  the  process  of  social 
development  which  has  been  taking  place,  and  which 
is  still  in  progress  in  our  Western  civilisation,  is  not 
the  product  of  the  intellect,  but  that  the  motive  force 
behind  it  has  had  its  seat  and  origin  in  that  fund 
of  altruistic  feeling  with  which  our  civilisation  has 
become  equipped.  Second,  that  this  altruistic  devel- 
opment, and  the  deepening  and  softening  of  character 
which  has  accompanied  it,  are  the  direct  and  peculiar 
product  of  the  religious  system  on  which  our  civilisa- 
tion is  founded.  Third,  that  to  science  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  resulting  process  of  social  evolution,  in 
which  all  the  people  are  being  slowly  brought  into  the 
rivalry  of  existence  on  equal  conditions,  consists  in 
the  single  fact  that  this  rivalry  has  tended  to  be 
thereby  raised  to  the  highest  degree  of  efficiency  as  a 
cause  of  progress  it  has  ever  attained.     The  peoples 


200  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

affected  by  the  process  have  been  thereby  worked  up 
to  a  state  of  social  efficiency  which  has  given  them 
preponderating  advantages  in  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence with  other  sections  of  the  race. 

If  we  are  to  regard  our  civilisation  as  a  single 
organic  growth,  and  if,  for  the  seat  of  these  vital 
forces  that  are  producing  the  movements  in  progress 
around  us,  we  must  look  to  the  ethical  development 
which  has  projected  itself  through  the  history  of  the 
Western  races,  it  is  evident  that  it  is  from  the  epoch 
of  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  that  we  must, 
in  a  strictly  scientific  sense,  date  the  modern  expan- 
sion of  society.  From  the  point  of  view  of  science 
the  pre-Reformation  and  the  post-Reformation  move- 
ment is  an  unbroken  unity  seen  in  different  stages  of 
growth.  But  it  is  in  the  period  of  the  post-Refor- 
mation development  that  it  became  the  destiny  of 
the  religious  system,  upon  which  our  civilisation  is 
founded,  to  release  into  the  practical  life  of  the  world 
that  product  which  constitutes  the  most  powerful 
motive  influence  ever  enlisted  in  the  cause  of  prog- 
ress. The  development  which  took  place  at  this  stage 
in  the  life  of  the  social  organism  could  only  take 
place  then.  The  time  for  it  can  never  recur.  The 
subsequent  course  of  social  development  must  be 
different  amongst  the  peoples  where  it  was  retarded 
or  suppressed,  and  amongst  those  where  it  was 
allowed  to  follow  its  natural  course.1     The  nature  of 

1  Mr.  Lecky  has  followed  Macaulay  (Essay  on  Ranke's  History)  in 
noticing  that  the  later  movements  of  opinion  amongst  peoples  who  have 
not  accepted  the  principles  of  the  Reformation  have  been,  not  towards 
those  principles,  but  towards  Rationalism  (History  of  Rationalism, 
vol.  i.  pp.  170-173).     It  is  so;  but  the  conclusions  often  drawn  from  this 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  201 

this  difference,  caused  by  the  greater  development  of 
the  humanitarian  feelings,  and  the  greater  extent  to 
which  the  deepening  and  softening  of  the  character 
has  proceeded  amongst  the  peoples  most  affected  by 
the  Reformation,  will  be  dealt  with  at  a  later  stage.1 

It  may  be  remarked  that  it  will  probably  be  ob- 
jected by  some,  that  there  exists  amongst  us  at  the 
present  time  a  considerable  number  of  persons  who 
are  not  consciously  affected  by  the  religious  move- 
ment to  which  we  have  been  attributing  so  much 
importance,  who  regard  themselves  as  outside  its 
influence,  but  who  are  yet  obviously  affected  by,  and 
in  full  sympathy  with,  the  causes  which  are  making 
for  progress.  It  will  be  urged  that  there  are  not 
wanting  a  considerable  number  of  persons  at  the 
present  day  of  leading,  eminence,  and  influence, 
whose  lives  and  teaching  are  themselves  the  highest 
examples  that  we  could  have  of  that  extraordinary 
development  of  the  altruistic  feelings,  which  has  been 

fact,  disparaging  to  the  Reformation,  have  arisen  from  an  incomplete 
sense  of  the  nature  of  the  progressive  development  we  are  undergoing. 
The  time  for  the  development  which  then  took  place  has  for  ever  gone 
by  ;  it  cannot  be  repeated  at  a  later  stage  in  the  life  of  the  organism. 
But  the  subsequent  course  of  social  progress  amongst  the  peoples  where 
the  movement  followed  its  natural  order,  will  be  profoundly  different 
from  elsewhere.  It  is  amongst  these  peoples,  as  will  be  seen  in  a  later 
chapter,  that  the  social  revolution  which  it  is  the  destiny  of  our  civilisa- 
tion to  accomplish  must  proceed  by  the  most  orderly  stages,  and  must 
reach  its  completest  expression. 

1  The  vital  connection  between  the  modern  industrial  expansion  and 
the  Reformation  is  recognised  by  many  socialists.  See,  for  instance, 
the  section  on  "  the  Modern  Revolution  "  in  Mr.  Belfort  Bax's  Religion 
of  Socialism.  It  is,  of  course,  treated  of  from  the  author's  peculiar 
standpoint ;  but  in  this,  as  in  many  other  matters,  socialistic  writers 
show  a  sense  of  the  essential  unity  and  interdependence  of  the  various 
phases  of  our  social  phenomena  which  is  often  wanting  in  their  critics. 


202  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

regarded  as  the  peculiar  product  of  the  religious 
development  we  have  described,  but  who,  neverthe- 
less, openly  profess  disbelief  in  the  teaching  which  it 
inspires,  and  who  would  altogether  disclaim  its  in- 
fluence in  ordering  their  lives  or  directing  their  con- 
duct. How,  it  will  be  asked,  are  we  to  reconcile 
these  facts  with  the  view  of  our  civilisation  as  the 
product  of  this  religious  movement,  and  with  our  con- 
ception of  the  latter  as  the  seat  of  those  vital  forces 
which  are  moving  and  reconstructing  the  modern 
world  ? 

The  explanation  is  simple.  It  arises  naturally  when 
we  come  to  regard  the  history  of  our  civilisation  as 
the  record  of  a  long  process  of  social  development,  to 
the  progress  of  which  our  interests  as  individuals  are 
quite  subordinate.  It  has  been  insisted  throughout 
that  the  social  development  which  is  called  Western 
civilisation  is  not  the  product  of  any  particular  race 
or  people ;  that  it  must  be  regarded  as  an  organic 
growth,  the  key  to  the  life-history  of  which  is  to  be 
found  in  the  study  of  the  ethical  movement  which 
extends  through  it.  If  we  look  at  the  matter  in  this 
light,  and  then  call  to  mind  what  the  histories  of  the 
nations  and  races  embraced  within  the  life  of  this 
organic  development  have  been  ;  if  we  reflect  how 
deeply  these  peoples  have  been  affected  at  every 
point  by  the  movement  in  question ;  how  profoundly 
their  laws,  institutions,  mental,  and  moral  training, 
ways  of  judging  conduct,  and  habits  of  thought  have 
been  influenced  for  an  immense  number  of  genera- 
tions in  the  course  of  the  development  through  which 
they  have  passed,  we  shall  at  once  realise  that  it 
would  be  irrational  and  foolish  to  expect   that   any 


vii  WESTERN   CIVILISATION  203 

individuals,  or  classes,  or  all  the  individuals  of  a  single 
generation,  should  have  the  power  to  free  themselves 
from  this  influence.  We  are,  all  of  us,  whatever  our 
individual  opinions  may  be  concerning  this  movement, 
unconsciously  influenced  by  it  at  every  point  of  our 
careers,  and  in  every  moment  of  our  lives.  We,  like 
our  times,  are  mentally  and  morally  the  product  of 
it;  we  simply  have  no  power  to  help  ourselves.  No 
training,  however  rigorous  and  prolonged,  no  intel- 
lectual effort,  however  consistent  and  concentrated, 
could  ever  entirely  emancipate  us  from  its  influence. 
In  the  life  of  the  individual,  the  influence  of  habits 
of  thought  or  training  once  acquired  can  be  escaped 
from  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty,  and  after  the 
lapse  of  a  long  interval  of  time.  How  much  more 
so  in  the  immensely  longer  life  of  the  social  organ- 
ism ? x 

It  has  been  the  aim  of  a  certain  class  of  writers, 
which  has  one  of  its  most  distinguished  representa- 
tives in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  to  lead  us  to  regard 
the  altruistic  sentiments  as  a  kind  of  product  which 
is  being  accumulated,  as  it  were,  by  use  in  our  civili- 

1  Regarding  the  subject  from  his  own  standpoint,  Dr.  Martineau 
observes  with  force  that,  in  a  society  constituted  as  ours  is,  "  the  ethical 
action  and  reaction  of  men  upon  each  other  will  be  infinite,  and  will,  so 
far,  prevail  over  the  solitary  force  of  individual  nature,  that  no  one, 
however  exceptionally  great,  will  escape  all  relation  to  the  general  level 
of  his  time.  The  dependence  then  of  the  moral  consciousness  for  its 
growth  upon  society  is  incident  to  its  very  nature.  But  to  suppose,  on 
this  account,  that  if  it  were  not  there  at  all  society  could  generate  it ; 
and,  by  skilful  financing  with  the  exchanges  of  pleasure  and  pain,  could 
turn  a  sentient  world  into  a  moral  one,  will  never  cease  to  be  an  insol- 
vent theory  which  makes  provision  for  no  obligation :  never  so  long  as 
it  is  true  that  out  of  nothing  nothing  comes."  —  Seat  of  Authority  in 
Religion,  p.  54. 


204  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

sation,  and  which  we  tend,  therefore,  to  transmit  in 
ever-increasing  ratio  to  our  descendants.  In  course 
of  time,  according  to  this  view,  we  may  expect  to  be 
born  ready  to  act  naturally  and  instinctively  in  a 
manner  conducive  to  the  good  of  society.  The  exer- 
cise of  the  altruistic  feelings  would,  in  such  circum- 
stances, be  independent  of  all  religious  sanctions, 
including  that  larger  class  which  operate  indirectly 
through  producing  satisfactions  of  the  kind  which 
most  people,  whatever  their  opinions,  derive  from 
acting  in  accordance  with  standards  which  general 
feeling  holds  to  be  right.  This  party,  as  we  shall 
see  further  on,  must,  however,  sooner  or  later,  find 
itself  ranged  in  opposition  to  the  progressive  ten- 
dencies of  modern  biological  science,  as,  indeed,  Mr. 
Spencer  has  already  found  himself  to  be  in  the  con- 
troversy which  he  has  recently  undertaken  against 
the  Weismann  theories.1  But,  over  and  above  this, 
the  aim  throughout  the  preceding  pages  has  been  to 
show  that  the  peculiar  feature  in  which  human  evolu- 
tion differs  from  all  previous  evolution  consists  in  the 
progressive  development  of  the  intellect,  rendering 
it  impossible  that  instincts  of  the  kind  indicated 
should  continue  to  act  as  efficient  sanctions  for  altru- 
istic conduct.  Hence  the  characteristic  feature  of 
human  evolution,  ever  growing  with  the  growth  and 
developing  with  the  development  of  the  intellect, 
and  forming  the  natural  complement  of  its  growth 
and  development ;  namely,  the  phenomenon  of  our 
religions — the  function  of  which  is  to  provide  the 

1  Vide  Contemporary  Review,  February  1893,  "The  Inadequacy  of 
Natural  Selection,  I. ";  Ibid.  March  1893,  "  The  Inadequacy  of  Natural 
Selection,  II.";   Ibid.  May  1893,  "Professor  Weismann's  Theories." 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  205 

necessary  controlling  sanctions  in  the  new  circum- 
stances. Hence  also  the  success  of  those  forms 
which  have  provided  sanctions  that  have  contributed 
most  effectively  to  the  working  out  of  that  cosmic 
process  which  has  been  in  progress  from  the  begin- 
ning of  life.  Human  reason  alone  can  never,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  provide  any  effective  sanction  to 
the  individual  for  conduct  which  contributes  to  the 
furtherance  of  this  process,  for  one  of  the  essential 
features  of  the  cosmic  process  is  the  sacrifice  of  the 
individual  himself,  not  merely  in  the  interest  of  his 
fellows  around  him,  but  in  the  interests  of  genera- 
tions yet  unborn.  The  intellect,  uncontrolled  by 
ethical  forces  of  the  kind  we  have  been  consider- 
ing, must,  in  society,  be  always  individualistic,  dis- 
integrating, destructive;  even,  as  we  shall  have  to 
observe  later,  to  the  extent  of  suspending  the  oper- 
ation (in  the  interests  of  the  evolution  the  race  is 
undergoing)  of  fundamental  feelings  like  the  parental 
instincts,  which  have  behind  them,  not  only  the 
infinitesimal  period  during  which  society  has  existed, 
but  the  whole  span  of  time  since  the  beginning  of 
life. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  remarked  that  nothing 
tends  to  exhibit  more  strikingly  the  extent  to  which 
the  study  of  our  social  phenomena  must  in  future  be 
based  on  the  biological  sciences,  than  the  fact  that 
the  technical  controversy  now  being  waged  by  biolo- 
gists as  to  the  transmission  or  non-transmission  to 
offspring  of  qualities  acquired  during  the  lifetime  of 
the  parent,  is  one  which,  if  decided  in  the  latter 
sense,  must  produce  the  most  revolutionary  effect 
throughout  the  whole  domain  of  social  and  political 


206  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap,  vn 

philosophy.  If  the  old  view  is  correct,  and  the 
effects  of  use  and  education  are  transmitted  by  in- 
heritance, then  the  Utopian  dreams  of  philosophy  in 
the  past  are  undoubtedly  possible  of  realisation.  If 
we  tend  to  inherit  in  our  own  persons  the  result 
of  the  education  and  mental  and  moral  culture  of 
past  generations,  then  we  may  venture  to  anticipate 
a  future  society  which  will  not  deteriorate,  but  which 
may  continue  to  make  progress,  even  though  the 
struggle  for  existence  be  suspended,  the  population 
regulated  exactly  to  the  means  of  subsistence,  and 
the  antagonism  between  the  individual  and  the  social 
organism  extinguished,  even  as  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer 
has  anticipated.1  But  if,  as  the  writer  believes,  the 
views  of  the  Weismann  party  are  in  the  main  cor- 
*S  rect;  if  there  can  be  no  progress  except  by  the 
/  accumulation  of  congenital  variations  above  the  aver- 
age to  the  exclusion  of  others  below ;  if,  without 
*  the  constant  stress  of  selection  which  this  involves, 
the  tendency  of  every  higher  form  of  life  is  actually 
retrograde ;  then  is  the  whole  human  race  caught  in 
the  toils  of  that  struggle  and  rivalry  of  life  which  has 
been  in  progress  from  the  beginning.  Then  must 
the  rivalry  of  existence  continue,  humanised  as  to 
conditions  it  may  be,  but  immutable  and  inevitable 
to  the  end.  Then  also  must  all  the  phenomena  of 
human  life,  individual,  political,  social,  and  religious, 
be  considered  as  aspects  of  this  cosmic  process,  capa- 
ble of  being  studied  and  understood  by  science  only 
in  their  relations  thereto. 

1  Vide  Data  of  Ethics,  chap.  xiv. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


MODERN    SOCIALISM 


Before  proceeding  now  to  the  further  considera- 
tion of  the  laws  which  underlie  the  complex  social 
phenomena  that  present  themselves  in  the  civilisa- 
tion around  us,  it  will  be  well  to  look  for  a  moment 
backwards,  so  as  to  impress  on  the  mind  the  more 
characteristic  features  of  the  ground  over  which  we 
have  travelled. 

We  have  seen  that  progress  from  the  beginning  of 
life  has  been  the  result  of  the  most  strenuous  and 
imperative  conditions  of  rivalry  and  selection,  certain 
fundamental  physiological  laws  rendering  it  impossi- 
ble, in  any  other  circumstances,  for  life  to  continue 
along  the  upward  path  which  it  has  taken.  Man  be- 
ing subject  like  other  forms  of  life  to  the  physiologi- 
cal laws  in  question,  his  progress  also  was  possible 
only  under  the  conditions  which  had  prevailed  from 
the  beginning.  The  same  process,  accordingly,  takes 
its  course  throughout  human  history ;  but  it  does  so 
accompanied  by  phenomena  quite  special  and  pecul- 
iar. The  human  intellect  has  been,  and  must  neces- 
sarily continue  to  be,  an  important  factor  in  the 
evolution  which  is  proceeding.  Yet  the  resulting 
self-assertiveness  of  the  individual  must  be  abso- 
lutely subordinated  to  the  maintenance  of  a  process 
in  which  the  individual  himself  has  not  the  slightest 

207 


208  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

interest,  but  to  the  furtherance  of  which  his  personal 
welfare  must  be  often  sacrificed.  Hence  the  central 
feature  of  human  history,  namely  the  dominance  of 
that  progressively  developing  class  of  phenomena 
included  under  the  head  of  religions  whereby  this 
subordination  has  been  effected.  Hence,  also,  the 
success  of  those  forms  which  have  contributed  to  the 
fullest  working  out  of  that  cosmic  process  which  is 
proceeding  throughout  human  existence,  just  as  it 
has  been  proceeding  from  the  beginning  of  life. 

What  we  have,  therefore,  specially  to  note  before 
advancing  further  is,  that  it  is  this  cosmic  process 
which  is  everywhere  triumphant  in  human  history. 
There  has  been  no  suspension  of  it.  There  has  been 
no  tendency  towards  suspension.  On  the  contrary 
throughout  the  period  during  which  the  race  has  ex- 
isted, the  peoples  amongst  whom  the  process  has  oper- 
ated under  most  favourable  conditions  have  always 
been  the  most  successful.  And  the  significance  of 
that  last  and  greatest  phase  of  social  development 
which  has  taken  place  in  our  Western  civilisation,  in 
which  all  the  people  are  being  slowly  brought  into 
the  rivalry  of  life,  consists  simply  in  the  fact  that 
this  process  tends  to  reach  therein  the  fullest  and 
completest  expression  it  has  ever  attained. 

Keeping  these  facts  in  mind,  let  us  now  proceed  to 
consider  the  significance  of  that  great  social  move- 
ment which  is  beginning  to  exert  a  gradually  deepen- 
ing influence  on  the  political  life  of  our  period.  The 
uprising  known  throughout  Europe,  and  in  America, 
as  the  Socialist  movement  is  the  most  characteristic 
product  of  our  time.  Nothing  is,  however,  more 
remarkable  than  the  uncertainty,  hesitation,  and  even 


viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  209 

bewilderment  with  which  it  is  regarded,  not  only  by 
those  whose  business  lies  with  the  practical  politics 
of  the  current  day,  but  by  some  of  those  who,  from 
the  larger  outlook  of  social  and  historical  science, 
might  be  expected  to  have  formed  some  conception 
of  its  nature,  its  proportions,  and  its  meaning. 

In  attempting  to  examine  this  movement,  it  is  a 
matter  of  no  small  importance  to  carefully  consider 
the  environment  in  which  it  is  to  be  studied ;  for  a 
very  brief  reflection  makes  it  clear  that  many  of  the 
phenomena  associated  with  it  in  various  parts  of  our 
civilisation  are  due  to  local  causes  that  have  no  essen- 
tial connection  with  the  movement  in  general.  Thus, 
if  France  is  chosen  as  the  locality  in  which  to  study 
the  movement,  it  sooner  or  later  becomes  clear  that 
that  country,  despite  its  early  and  trenchant  experi- 
ments in  democratic  government,  is  not  by  any  means 
a  favourable  one  in  which  to  observe  the  progress  of 
modern  socialism.  The  process  of  social  development 
therein,  although  rapid,  has  been  too  irregular,  and 
its  people  have  too  completely  broken  with  the  past 
to  allow  of  an  exact  comparison  of  the  relationship 
to  each  other  of  the  developmental  forces  at  present 
at  work.  In  the  recent  history  of  the  country,  the 
old  spirit  and  the  new  have  tended  to  confront  each 
other  in  extremes;  and  we  must  remember  that, 
despite  the  genuine  triumph  which  democracy  ob- 
tained in  the  period  of  the  Revolution,  it  is  in  France 
that  we  have  witnessed  within  the  nineteenth  century 
attempts  to  revive,  on  a  most  ambitious  scale,  that 
ancient  spirit  of  military  Caesarism  which  is  alto- 
gether foreign  to  our  civilisation. 

In  Germany,  again,  we  have  a  country  which  in 


210  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


CHAP. 


many  respects  must  be  considered  the  true  home  at 
the  present  day  of  social  democracy.  Yet  it  may  be 
noted  that  even  there  the  causes  which  have  con- 
tributed most  effectively  to  swell  the  proportions  of 
the  existing  movement  are  largely  local  and  peculiar. 
Placed,  as  the  German  people  are,  between  a  neigh- 
bour like  France  on  the  one  side,  and  a  country  like 
Russia  in  a  far  earlier  stage  of  social  evolution  on  the 
other,  they  have  developed,  through  force  of  circum- 
stances, an  extensive  militaryism  which,  while  essen- 
tially defensive  and  therefore  characteristically  differ- 
ent from  the  older  type,  tends,  nevertheless,  to  retard 
the  process  of  social  expansion  which  is  in  progress, 
and  to  develop  features  which  are  incompatible  with 
the  spirit  underlying  this  expansion.  In  many  of  its 
social  features,  Germany  is  still  backward,  although 
it  is  difficult  to  believe,  as  M.  Leroy-Beaulieu  asserts, 
that  it  remains,  despite  the  rapid  advance  made  by 
socialism  therein,  the  one  country  in  Europe,  exclud- 
ing Russia,  which  is  most  under  the  sway  of  old  in- 
fluences.1 Social  development  in  Germany  is,  in  fact, 
proceeding  unevenly.  It  is  advanced  as  regards  ideas, 
but  in  arrear  as  regards  practice ;  and  such  a  situa- 
tion does  not  offer  the  most  favourable  conditions  for 
estimating  the  character  and  the  destiny  of  the  move- 
ment with  which  the  extreme  party  in  that  country 
is  identified. 

Again,  in  the  United  States  of  America,  where  we 
have  the  most  typical  Democracy  our  civilisation  has 
produced,  we  are  also  under  some  disadvantage  in  the 

1  Vide  Economiste  Fran$ais,  "  Influence  of  Civilisation  on  the  Move- 
ment of  Population,"  by  P.  Leroy-Beaulieu,  20th  and  27th  September 
1890. 


viii  MODERN  SOCIALISM  211 

study  of  the  forces  that  lie  behind  modern  socialism. 
The  social  question  in  America  is,  in  all  essential  re- 
spects, the  same  question  as  in  any  other  part  of  our 
Western  civilisation.  It  is  probable  too  that  nowhere 
else  will  the  spirit  which  is  behind  socialism  measure 
itself  with  greater  freedom  from  disturbing  influences 
against  certain  opposing  forces  which  are  the  pecul- 
iar product  of  our  modern  free  communities,  than 
in  that  country.  Yet  the  special  conditions  of  "  new- 
ness "  which  are  present  largely  interfere  to  prevent 
the  essential  character  of  the  social  question  as  a 
phase  of  an  orderly  development  which  has  been  long 
in  progress,  from  being  so  clearly  distinguished  in  the 
United  States,  and,  therefore,  from  being  so  profit- 
ably studied  there  as  elsewhere. 

Taking  all  these  considerations  into  account  we 
shall  probably  not  be  able  to  do  better  than  to  follow 
the  lead  of  Marx  in  choosing  England  as  the  best 
country  in  which  to  study  the  developments  of  the 
modern  spirit.  We  may  do  so,  not  only  for  the  reason 
which  influenced  Marx,  namely,  that  it  is  the  land 
in  which  modern  capitalism  and  industrialism  obtained 
their  earliest  and  fullest  expression  ;  but  also  because, 
in  this  country,  the  process  of  social  development  has 
been  less  obscured  by  local  causes  and  less  inter- 
rupted by  disturbing  events.  It  has,  on  the  whole, 
proceeded  by  regular,  orderly,  and  successful  stages 
in  the  past,  and  it  shows  no  signs  of  weakening  or 
cessation  in  the  present.  For  these  reasons  it  would 
appear  that  the  relationship  of  the  present  to  the  past 
and  the  future  may  be  more  profitably  studied  in 
England  than  anywhere  else  in  our  Western  Civilisa- 
tioa 


212  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

Now  there  is  an  aspect  of  English  political  life  at 
the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  which  will,  not 
improbably,  at  a  later  period,  absorb  the  attention  of 
the  historian.  This  is  the  remarkable  change  that  at 
the  present  time  is  slowly  and  silently  taking  place 
within  that  great  political  party  which  has  led  the  van 
of  progress  during  the  past  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  and  which,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  last  few 
generations,  has  added  to  the  statute-book  a  list  of 
progressive  measures  that,  taken  all  together,  consti- 
tutes in  effect  one  of  the  greatest  revolutions  through 
which  any  country  has  passed  in  so  brief  a  period. 
At  first  sight  the  change  in  progress  has  all  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  a  process  of  disintegration,  and 
one  of  its  results  for  the  time  being  must  undoubtedly 
be  to  strengthen,  in  some  measure,  the  opposing  ranks. 
It  is  not  that  the  party  of  progress  has  been  rent  with 
feuds,  or  that  its  strength  has  been  undermined  by 
malign  influences.  On  the  contrary,  not  only  has  it 
fought  a  good  fight,  but  it  has  kept  the  faith.  It  is 
rather  that  events  appear  to  have  outgrown  the  faith  ; 
and  slowly  and  almost  imperceptibly  the  depressing 
and  dispiriting  feeling  has  spread  throughout  the 
ranks  that  the  old  watchwords  are  losing  their  mean- 
ing, and  that  the  party  is  at  length  confronted  with 
problems  which  the  well-tried  formulae  of  the  past 
have  no  power  to  solve. 

The  unusual  and  exceptional  nature  of  the  crisis 
through  which  political  life  in  England  is  passing  at 
the  present  time,  is  only  brought  into  greater  promi- 
nence on  a  closer  view.  It  may  be  observed  that  the 
development  which  the  Liberal  party  has  been  work- 
ing out  in  English  public  life  throughout  the  nine- 


viii  MODERN  SOCIALISM  213 

teenth  century  has  been  but  the  latest  phase  of  that 
great  social  movement,  the  progress  of  which  we 
traced  in  the  last  chapter  throughout  the  history  of 
our  Western  civilisation ;  and  in  this  stage  it  has  at 
length  almost  accomplished  the  emancipation  of  the 
individual  and  the  establishment  of  political  equality 
throughout  the  entire  social  organisation.  Since  the 
early  part  of  the  century  we  have  had,  for  instance,  in 
England  a  series  of  measures  following  each  other 
at  short  intervals  extending  the  political  franchise 
until  it  now  nearly  includes  the  adult  male  population. 
Side  by  side  with  these  we  have  had  a  number  of 
measures  emancipating  trade  and  commerce  from  the 
control  of  the  privileged  classes,  who,  under  the  cover 
of  protective  laws,  made  largely  in  their  own  interests, 
were  enabled  to  tax  the  community  for  their  benefit. 

In  like  manner,  during  the  century,  a  long  list  of 
measures  has  aimed  at  the  curtailment  and  abolition 
of  class  privileges.  Local  popularly-elected  bodies  of 
all  kinds  have  been  everywhere  created,  the  tendency 
of  which  has  been  to  greatly  restrict,  and  even  to 
extinguish,  the  undue  local  influence  previously  exer- 
cised by  wealth.  The  voting  power  of  the  property- 
owning  classes  has  been  gradually  curtailed  until  it 
has  been  reduced  almost  to  the  level  of  the  hum- 
blest class  of  citizens.  The  state  services  have  been 
thrown  open,  instead  of  being  practically  reserved  for 
the  friends  of  the  privileged  classes ;  all  comers  have 
been  placed  on  a  footing  of  equality,  and  unexampled 
purity  of  administration  has  been  secured  through- 
out the  public  services.  There  has  been  also  a  great 
number  of  measures  which  have  aimed  at  rendering 
this  state  of  political  equality,  not  only  theoretical, 


214  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

but  real  and  effective.  The  extension  of  the  fran- 
chise has  been  accompanied  by  measures  like  the 
Ballot  Act  and  the  Bribery  Acts,  intended  to  protect 
the  weakest  and  poorest  class  of  the  people  from 
being  interfered  with  in  the  exercise  of  their  political 
rights ;  and,  lastly,  we  have  had  a  succession  of  Edu- 
cation Acts  which  have  aimed  at  qualifying  every 
citizen  to  understand  and  value  for  himself  his  rights 
and  position  as  a  member  of  a  free  community. 

It  has  to  be  specially  noted  now  that  the  political 
doctrine  which  lay  behind  all  this  extensive  list  of 
reforms  has  had  certain  clearly-defined  limitations. 
The  acknowledged  aim  of  the  political  party,  under 
whose  influence  or  direction  most  of  these  measures 
were  carried,  has  always  been  kept  clearly  in  the  fore- 
ground. It  has  been  to  secure  equal  political  rights 
for  all.  The  first  article  of  faith  behind  this  programme 
was  that,  this  end  being  secured,  the  highest  good  of 
the  community  was  then  to  be  secured  by  allowing 
the  individuals  to  work  out  their  own  social  salvation 
(or  damnation)  amid  the  free  and  unrestricted  play  of 
natural  forces  within  the  community,  hampered  by  the 
least  possible  interference  from  government.  It  has 
been  held  in  England  by  the  progressive  party,  as  a 
fundamental  principle,  that  "a  people  among  whom 
there  is  no  habit  of  spontaneous  action  for  a  collective 
interest  —  who  look  habitually  to  their  government  to 
command  or  prompt  them  in  all  matters  of  joint-con- 
cern, who  expect  to  have  everything  done  for  them 
in  all  matters  of  joint-concern,  who  expect  to  have 
everything  done  for  them  except  what  can  be  made 
an  affair  of  mere  habit  and  routine — have  their  facul- 
ties only  half  developed  ;  their  education  is  defective 


viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  215 

in  one  of  its  most  important  branches."  *  The  end 
consistently  aimed  at  was,  therefore,  the  "restrict- 
ing to  the  narrowest  compass  the  intervention  of  a 
public  authority  in  the  business  of  the  community."  2 
Mill  urged  with  emphasis  that  the  onus  of  making 
out  of  a  strong  case  in  respect  of  this  intervention, 
should  further  be  placed,  not  on  those  who  resisted 
it,  but  on  those  who  recommended  it,  and  he  insisted 
without  compromise  that  "  letting  alone  should  be  the 
general  practice,"  and  that  "every  departure  from  it, 
unless  required  by  some  great  good,  is  a  certain 
evil."3 

Such  has  been  the  great  English  political  doctrine  of 
Laissez-faire.  To  the  development,  expansion,  and  ap- 
plication thereof,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  group 
of  political  leaders  and  social,  political,  and  philo- 
sophical writers  that  any  country  has  ever  produced, 
has  for  a  long  period  contributed.  Under  it  the  unex- 
ampled English  expansion  of  the  nineteenth  century 
has  taken  place,  and  it  has  undoubtedly  been  an  im- 
portant factor  in  producing  that  expansion.  Taken 
with  all  its  faults  and  limitations,  it  has  been  one 
of  the  most  characteristic  products  of  the  political 
genius  of  the  English-speaking  peoples.  Its  spirit 
still  pervades  the  entire  political  life  of  all  the  lands 
into  which  these  peoples  have  carried  their  institu- 
tions. In  what  respect,  therefore,  have  we  outgrown 
it  ?  What  is  the  import  in  relation  thereto  of  that 
socialistic  movement  which  is  now  so  deeply  affect- 
ing the  minds  of  certain  sections  of  the  population 
amongst  the  Western  peoples  ?     Whither  beyond  it 

1  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  J.  S.  Mill,  Book  v.  chap,  xi, 

2  Ibid.  3  Ibid. 


216  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

is  that  evolution  which  we  have  traced  throughout 
the  history  of  these  peoples  now  carrying  us  ? 

In  order  to  answer  these  questions  it  is  necessary 
to  scrutinise  the  forces  at  work  in  English  political 
life  at  the  present  time.  We  have  already  found 
that  the  real  impelling  force  which  lies  behind  the 
political  advance  that  we,  in  common  with  most 
European  peoples,  have  been  making  in  recent  times, 
has  its  seat  in  the  development  the  altruistic  feelings 
have  attained  amongst  us,  and  in  the  deepening  and 
softening  of  character  which  has  accompanied  the 
change.  It  is  these  feelings  that  have  found  a  vehicle 
for  expression  in  that  body  of  public  opinion  which, 
moving  slowly  in  the  past  but  more  quickly  in  our 
own  time,  has  brought  about  the  gradual  political 
emancipation  of  the  individual  from  the  rule  of  the 
privileged  classes.  What  we  have,  however,  now  to 
particularly  note,  is  that  the  movement  which  has 
carried  us  thus  far  shows  no  signs  of  staying  or  abat- 
ing ;  the  same  feelings  continue  to  supply  an  impel- 
ling force  that  threatens  to  drive  us,  and  that  actually 
is  driving  us,  onwards  far  beyond  the  limits  which 
the  political  doctrines  of  the  recent  past  prescribed. 

It  may  be  noticed  in  England  that  the  political 
emancipation  of  the  masses,  the  last  stage  of  which 
in  this  country  has  occupied  almost  an  entire  century, 
is  now  well-nigh  accomplished.  The  shreds  of  politi- 
cal measures  necessary  to  complete  it  —  which  are 
all  that  those  who  adhere  to  the  progressive  faith  of 
the  past  have  to  offer  —  form  so  slender  a  programme 
as  scarcely  to  excite  any  real  enthusiasm  amongst 
the  followers  of  those  leaders  whose  mental  horizon 
is  still  bounded  by  the  old   ideals   of   the   political 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  217 

enfranchisement  of  the  people.  On  the  other  hand, 
an  immense  number  of  larger  and  greatly  more  im- 
portant questions  have  arisen  which  press  for  atten- 
tion. In  the  unparalleled  expansion  which  has  taken 
place,  new  and  vast  problems  that  the  old  leaders  did 
not  foresee  have  been  born,  and  it  may  be  noticed 
that  the  free  and  unrestricted  play  of  forces  within 
the  community  is  producing  results  against  which 
the  public  conscience,  still  moved  by  the  altruistic 
feelings,  has  been  slowly  but  surely  rising  in  revolt. 

In  England,  within  the  last  decade,  descriptions  of 
how  the  poor  live  in  our  great  cities,  and  the  revela- 
tions made  through  inquiries  like  that  conducted  by 
the  Sweating  Commission,  or  more  recently  through 
that  instituted  on  so  extensive  a  scale  by  Mr.  Charles 
Booth  into  the.  condition  of  the  London  poor,  have 
deeply  stirred  the  public  mind.  It  is  being  gradually 
realised  that  there  are  great  masses  of  the  people 
who,  amid  the  unrestricted  operation  of  social  and 
economic  forces,  and  under  a  regime  of  political 
liberty,  have  never  had  any  fair  opportunity  in  life  at 
all,  and  who  have  been  from  the  beginning  inevitably 
condemned  to  the  conditions  of  a  degraded  existence. 
It  seems  to  be  already  generally  felt  that  something 
more  than  mere  political  liberty  is  demanded  here. 

Again,  trade  and  commerce  have  been  to  a  large 
extent  freed  from  the  control  of  the  privileged  classes 
of  the  past ;  but,  in  the  unrestricted  expansion  which 
has  followed,  the  capitalist  classes  appear  to  have 
inherited  a  very  large  share  of  the  rights  and  powers 
of  their  predecessors.  They  have  even  become  pos- 
sessed of  others  in  addition,  while  the  personal  sense 
of  relationship  which  introduced  a  modifying  sense  of 


218  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

duty  in  the  past,  tends  to  become  more  and  more 
attenuated.  Political  liberty  has  not  enabled  the 
poorer  classes  to  make  headway  against  the  enormous 
influence  which  these  classes  wield,  to  the  extent  to 
which  many  of  the  older  reformers  expected.  By 
the  combination  of  the  capitalist  classes  into  rings, 
trusts,  syndicates,  and  like  associations  for  the  uni- 
versal control  of  production  and  the  artificial  keeping 
up  of  prices,  the  community  finds  the  general  welfare 
threatened  by  a  complication  which  the  reformers  of 
the  past  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  counted  upon. 
We  have  also  great  organisations  and  combinations 
of  labour  against  these  capitalist  classes  whereby  the 
life  of  the  community  is  disturbed  and  disorganised 
to  a  serious  extent,  and  to  which  it  seems  to  be 
increasingly  difficult  to  apply  the  old  doctrine  of  the 
restricted  nature  of  the  duty  of  the  state.  It  is 
evident,  moreover,  that  in  these  recurring  struggles 
the  combatants,  if  left  to  themselves,  are  often  un- 
equally matched ;  for  the  weapon  on  one  side  is 
merely  the  power  to  reduce  profits,  while  on  the  other 
it  is  the  right  to  impose  actual  want  and  hunger  on 
large  numbers  of  our  fellow-creatures.  We  have, 
therefore,  public  opinion  tending  more  and  more  to 
side  with  the  inherently  weaker  cause,  and,  under  the 
stimulus  of  the  altruistic  feelings,  coming  to  propose 
measures  that  leave  the  laissez-faire  doctrine  of  the 
past  far  behind. 

It  may  be  observed  also,  that  the  public  opinion, 
which  earlier  in  the  century  regarded  with  suspicion 
(as  tending  to  the  infringement  of  the  prevailing 
theories  as  to  the  restricted  nature  of  the  duty  of  the 
state)  even   the   attempt  to  regulate   the   hours   of 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  219 

women  and  children  in  factories  and  mines,  has 
already  come  to  view  as  within  the  realm  of  reason- 
able discussion  proposals  to  strengthen  the  position 
of  the  working  classes  by  enforcing  a  legal  eight 
hours  day  and  even  a  minimum  wage  in  certain  occu- 
pations. The  public  conscience,  which  is  moving 
fast  in  these  matters,  has  all  the  appearance  of  being 
destined  to  move  far.  We  are  not  without  growing 
evidence  that  our  education  laws  will  not  stop  with 
providing  the  bare  rudiments  of  education  for  the 
people,  nor  with  providing  them  on  the  grounds 
mentioned  by  Mill :  —  that  others  are  liable  to  suffer 
seriously  from  the  consequences  of  ignorance  and 
want  of  education  in  their  fellow-citizens.1  Nor 
would  indications  seem  to  show  that  we  have  reached 
finality  in  our  poor  laws  in  simply  guaranteeing  the 
bare  necessities  of  existence. 

We  have  evidence  everywhere  along  the  line,  not 
only  of  a  movement  towards  the  general  abandonment 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  non-interference  of  the  state  in 
social  matters,  but  of  a  more  significant  tendency 
that  seems  to  be  associated  with  it  —  a  tendency  to 
strengthen  and  equip  at  the  general  expense  the  lower 
and  weaker  against  the  higher  and  wealthier  classes 
of  the  community.  We  have,  it  is  evident,  already 
progressed  a  considerable  distance  beyond  the  doc- 
trine, that  the  end  of  endeavour  is  to  secure  politi- 
cal equality  for  all.     Yet  whither  are  we  travelling  ? 

Another  feature  of  the  times  which  we  may  notice 
is,  that  under  the  outward  appearance  of  action,  the 
great  political  party  which  has  carried  progress  so  far 

1  Vide  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  Book  v.  chap.  xi. 


220  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

in  England  stands  in  reality  doubting  and  confused 
in  mind.  It  moves,  it  is  true,  but  rather  because  it 
is  thrust  forward ;  the  enthusiasm,  the  robust  faith, 
the  clearly-defined  conviction  that  marked  its  advance 
through  the  early  and  middle  decades  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  seem  to  be  wanting.  The  ranks  move, 
but  irresolutely.  They  still  appear  to  wait  for  the 
vibrant  call  of  a  leader  upon  whom  a  larger  faith  has 
descended. 

While  the  party  of  progress  in  England  advances 
thus  falteringly,  and  with  eyes  cast  backwards  rather 
than  forwards,  the  most  remarkable  political  phe- 
nomenon of  the  time  is  rising  into  prominence  in 
another  quarter.  The  socialist  movement  which  has 
languished  through  various  phases,  and  fitfully  occu- 
pied attention  in  various  parts  of  Europe  since  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  has  entered  on  a  new  stage, 
and  has  taken  the  field  with  a  definite  political  pro- 
gramme. The  leaders  of  the  movement,  no  longer 
ignoring  politics  and  political  methods,  now  appear 
to  have  set  before  themselves  the  task  of  reforming 
the  state  through  the  state.  The  Utopian  projects 
which  distinguished  the  writings  of  its  earlier  advo- 
cates have  disappeared,  and  even  the  essential  ideals 
of  the  movement  tend  to  be  kept  in  the  background, 
to  be  discussed  amongst  the  faithful  as  the  ultimate 
goal  rather  than  with  the  adversary  as  the  immediate 
end  of  endeavour.  We  have  not  now  to  deal  with 
mere  abstract  and  transcendental  theories,  but  with 
a  clearly-defined  movement  in  practical  politics  appeal- 
ing to  some  of  the  deepest  instincts  of  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  voting  population,  and  professing  to 
provide  a  programme  likely  in  the  future  to   stand 


viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  221 

more  and  more  on  its  own  merits  in  opposition  to  all 
other  programmes  whatever. 

Yet  more  remarkable  still,  one  of  the  signs  of  the 
times  in  England  is  the  attitude  of  the  advanced  wing 
of  the  great  progressive  party  of  the  past  to  this 
new  movement.  It  appears  to  be  slowly  wheeling 
its  forces  into  line  with  those  of  this  socialist  party. 
To  the  bewilderment  of  many  of  the  old  leaders,  that 
party  whose  central  article  of  political  faith  in  the 
past,  namely,  the  untrammelled  freedom  of  the  indi- 
vidual, has  given  a  distinctive  colouring  to  the  polit- 
ical life  of  the  whole  English-speaking  world,  is  now 
asked  apparently  to  turn  its  face  in  a  direction  oppo- 
site to  that  in  which  it  has  been  previously  set,  and 
contrary  to  that  in  which  the  evolution  of  our  civilisa- 
tion has,  so  far,  progressed.  The  advance  in  the  new 
direction,  it  appears  to  those  who  still  hold  to  the  old 
faith,  must  inevitably  involve  the  weakening,  if  not 
the  ultimate  abandonment,  of  the  principles  for  which 
the  party  has  fought  so  long  and  so  sturdily  in  the 
past.  The  individualism  which  they  held  so  highly, 
and  which  has  been  so  markedly  associated  with  the 
stress  and  energy  of  life  amongst  the  advanced  peo- 
ples, must  apparently,  if  the  new  views  are  to  prevail, 
be  given  up.  The  play  of  the  competitive  forces 
which  has  so  largely  contributed  to  the  extraordinary 
expansion  of  the  past,  must  be,  it  appears  to  them, 
not  only  restricted,  but  perhaps  ultimately  suspended 
in  an  era  of  soul-deadening  and  energy-restricting 
socialism  on  the  one  side,  and  general  confusion  and 
political  insolvency  on  the  other. 

The  question  which  now  presents  itself  is  :  —  What 
is  the  significance  of  this  situation,  and  of  that  re- 


222  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

markable  period  of  transition  through  which  political 
life  in  England,  as  in  most  countries  where  our  civili- 
sation has  reached  an  advanced  stage,  is  passing? 
Let  us  proceed,  as  a  means  of  throwing  light  on 
the  subject,  to  examine  the  leading  features  of  the 
most  prevalent  and  influential  form  of  socialism  at 
the  present  day,  namely,  the  "  scientific  socialism " 
of  the  German  school  more  particularly  associated 
with  the  names  of  two  of  its  exponents,  Marx  and 
Engels. 

One  of  the  first  things  to  be  noticed  by  any  one 
who  undertakes  an  examination  of  the  socialistic 
phenomena  of  our  time,  is  the  remarkable  number  of 
schemes,  projects,  and  measures,  loosely  described 
as  socialist  or  socialistic,  that  have  nothing  whatever 
of  an  essentially  socialist  character  about  them. 
Without  going  so  far  as  to  accept  Proudhon's  defini- 
tion of  socialism  as  all  aspiration  towards  the  im- 
provement of  society,  a  large  number  of  persons 
appear  to  make  only  a  slight  reservation,  and  regard 
it  as  all  aspiration  towards  the  improvement  of  so- 
ciety by  society.  True  socialism  has,  however,  one 
invariable  characteristic  by  which  it  may  be  always 
recognised,  whether  it  take  the  form  advocated  by  the 
more  prevalent  German  school,  or  by  that  anarchist 
section  represented  by  Proudhon  and  Bakunin,  whose 
ideal,  despite  their  title  and  methods,  is  really  a  mor- 
ally perfect  state  in  which  government,  law,  and  police 
would  be  unnecessary.  True  socialism  has  always 
one  definite  object  in  view,  up  to  which  all  its  pro- 
posals directly  or  indirectly  lead.  This  is  the  final 
suspension  of  that  personal  struggle  for  existence 
which  has  been  waged,  not  only  from  the  beginning 


viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  223 

of  society,  but,  in  one  form  or  another,  from  the 
beginning  of  life.1 

Although  Marx  prudently  abstained  from  putting 
forward  any  detailed  scheme  of  the  social  order  which 
he  held  was  to  supersede  the  present  capitalist  and  com- 
petitive era,  he,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  deliberately 
leads  us  up  to  this  culmination.  The  attainment  of 
the  same  object  is  clearly  put  forward  by  Engels  as 
the  avowed  end  of  endeavour.  As  a  later  example 
we  have  the  same  idea  in  Mr.  Bellamy's  artistic  model 
of  a  socialist  community  in  working  order,  —  a  com- 
munity in  which  children  are  to  become  entitled  to  an 
equal  share  of  the  national  wealth  in  virtue  of  being 
born,  in  which  the  prices  of  staples  are  to  grow  less 
year  by  year,  in  which  there  is  to  be  no  state  legisla- 
ture and  no  legislation,  in  which  there  are  to  be  no 
police  and  no  criminal  classes,  but  in  which  it  can 
be  said  at  last  that  "  society  rests  on  its  base,  and  is 
in  as  little  need  of  support  as  the  everlasting  hills."2 

Now,  directly  we  come  to  examine  these  schemes, 

1  The  existence  of  an  inherent  principle  of  antagonism  between  true 
socialism  and  that  class  of  proposals  which  currently  pass  under  the 
name  of  "  State  Socialism  "  was  uncompromisingly  maintained  by  Herr 
Leibknecht  in  his  speech  at  the  Social  Democratic  Congress  held  at 
Berlin  in  November  1892.  "  Social  democracy,"  said  Herr  Leibknecht, 
"  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  so-called  state  socialism,  a  system  of 
half-measures  dictated  by  fear,  and  aiming  merely  at  undermining  the 
hold  of  social  democracy  over  the  working  classes  by  petty  concessions 
and  palliatives.  Such  measures  social  democracy  has  never  disdained 
to  promote  and  to  approve,  but  it  accepts  them  only  as  small  instal- 
ments, which  cannot  arrest  its  onward  march  towards  the  regeneration 
of  the  state  and  of  society  on  socialistic  principles.  Social  democracy 
is  essentially  revolutionary:  state  socialism  is  conservative.  As  such 
they  are  irreconcilably  opposed." 

2  Vide  Looking  Backward,  by  Edward  Bellamy. 


? 


224  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

a  somewhat  startling  admission  has  to  be  made,  an 
admission,  however,  for  which  those  who  have  followed 
the  argument  developed  through  the  preceding  chap- 
ters will  be  prepared.  It  is  that  the  arguments  by 
which  their  advocates  lead  up  to  them  are  unanswered, 
and  even  unanswerable  from  the  point  of  view  from 
which  the  greater  number  of  their  critics  have  assailed 
them.  This  admission  may  appear  the  more  remark- 
able, when  it  has  to  be  asserted  in  the  same  breath 
that  it  is  probably  true  that  in  all  the  literature  which 
socialism  has  produced,  no  serious  attempt  has  been 
made,  and  that  probably  no  serious  attempt  can  be 
made,  to  deal  with  even  the  initial  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  the  continued  success  of  a  society  organised 
on  a  socialist  basis. 

At  the  outset,  underneath  all  socialist  ideals,  there 
yawns  the  problem  of  population.  Progress  so  far  in 
life  has  always  been,  as  we  have  seen,  necessarily 
associated  with  the  inexorable  natural  law  over  which 
man  has  no  control,  and  over  which  he  can  never 
hope  to  have  any  control,  which  renders  selection 
necessary ;  and  which,  therefore,  keeps  up  the  stress 
of  life  by  compelling  every  type,  as  the  first  condition 
of  progress,  to  continually  press  upon  and  tend  to 
outrun  the  conditions  of  existence  for  the  time  being. 
One  of  the  fundamental  problems  which  has,  there- 
fore, confronted  every  form  of  civilisation  that  has 
arisen,  and  which  must  confront  every  form  that  will 
ever  exist,  is  that  arising  from  the  tendency  of  human 
reason  to  come  into  conflict  with  nature  over  this 
requirement.  Under  the  Utopias  of  socialism,  one  of 
two  things  must  happen :  either  this  increase  must 
be  restricted  or  not.     If  it   be    not    restricted,   and 


viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  225 

selection  is  allowed  to  continue,  then  the  whole  foun- 
dations of  such  a  fabric  as  Mr.  Bellamy  has  constructed 
are  bodily  removed.  Even  if  we  imagine  the  com- 
petitive forces  suspended  for  a  time  between  the 
members  of  the  community,  the  society  as  a  whole 
must,  sooner  or  later,  come  into  active  competition 
with  other  societies,  and  so  begin  once  more  one  of 
the  phases  through  which  human  society  has  already 
passed. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  increase  of  popula- 
tion is  to  be  restricted,  a  difficulty  no  less  important 
presents  itself.  A  considerable  number  of  persons 
have  contemplated  the  action  of  a  new  restrictive 
influence  (although  it  operated  widely  in  the  ancient 
civilisations)  in  public  opinion  and  the  conditions  of 
life  under  the  new  order,  anticipating,  with  a  lady 
writer  who  has  given  attention  to  the  subject  in  Eng- 
land, the  growth  of  a  feeling  of  intellectual  superiority 
to  "this  absurd  sacrifice  to  their  children,  of  genera- 
tion after  generation  of  grown  people."  1  But  in 
whatever  way  restriction  which  would  limit  the  pop- 
ulation to  the  actual  conditions  of  life  might  be 
effected,  it  is  not  necessary,  after  what  has  been  said 
in  previous  chapters  as  to  the  physiological  conditions 
of  the  process  which  has  been  working  itself  out 
throughout  life  —  and  nowhere  more  effectively  and 
thoroughly  than  in  human  history — to  deal  at  length 
with  the  fate  of  any  people  amongst  whom  the  re- 
striction was  practised.  The  conditions  of  selection 
being  suspended,  such  a  people  could  not  in  any  case 
avoid  progressive  degeneration  even  if  we  could 
imagine    them  escaping  more    direct    consequences. 

1  Mrs.  Mona  Caird,  Nineteenth  Century,  May  1892. 
Q 


226  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

In  ordinary  circumstances  they  would  indubitably 
receive  short  shrift  when  confronted  with  the  vigor- 
ous and  aggressive  life  of  societies  where,  other 
things  being  equal,  selection  and  the  stress  and  rivalry 
of  existence  were  still  continued. 

Again,  a  class  of  objections,  now  being  temperately 
discussed  in  England  and  Germany,  according  to 
which  a  state  organised  on  a  socialist  basis  would 
find  more  immediate  difficulties,  hindrances,  and 
drawbacks,  which  would  place  it  at  a  manifest  disad- 
vantage with  other  communities,  have  never  been 
seriously  dealt  with  by  socialist  writers.  The  enor- 
mous pressure,  capable  of  being  exercised  by  the 
competitive  system  at  its  best,  operating  continually 
to  ensure  the  most  economic  and  efficient  system  of 
production ;  the  accompanying  tendency  of  the  best 
men  to  find  the  places  for  which  they  are  best  fitted ; 
the  tendency  towards  the  free  utilisation  of  the 
powers  .of  such  men  to  the  fullest  degree  in  the  direc- 
tion of  invention,  discovery,  and  improvement,  coupled 
with  the  difficulty  of  finding  (human  nature  being 
what  it  is)  any  thoroughly  efficient  stimulus  for  the 
whole  of  the  population  to  exert  itself  to  the  highest 
degree  when  the  main  wants  of  life  were  secure,  these 
are  all  considerations  which  would,  in  an  earlier  stage, 
tell  enormously  against  a  socialist  community  when 
matched  in  the  general  competition  of  life  against 
other  communities  where  the  stress  of  life  was 
greater. 

It  will  not  help  us  even  if  there  are  to  be  no  com- 
peting societies,  and  if,  in  the  contemplated  era  of 
socialism,  the  whole  human  family  without  distinction 
of  race  or  colour  is  to  be  included  in  a  federation 


viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  227 

within  which  the  competitive  forces  are  to  be  sus- 
pended. We  may  draw  such  a  draft  on  our  imagina- 
tion, but  our  common-sense,  which  has  to  deal  with 
materials  as  they  exist,  refuses  to  honour  it.  We  are 
concerned,  not  with  an  imaginary  being,  but  with 
man  as  he  exists,  a  creature  standing  with  countless 
aeons  of  this  competition  behind  him  ;  every  quality 
of  his  mind  and  body  (even  including,  it  must  always 
be  remembered,  that  very  habit  of  generous  thought 
for  others  which  gives  heart  to  the  modern  socialistic 
movement)  the  product  of  this  rivalry,  with  its  mean- 
ing and  allotted  place  therein,  and  capable  of  finding 
its  fullest  and  fittest  employment  only  in  its  natural 
conditions. 

But  these  are  the  mere  commonplaces  which  only 
bring  us  to  the  crux  of  the  subject.  Impressive  as 
such  considerations  may  be  to  those  who  have  caught 
the  import  of  the  evolutionary  science  of  the  time, 
no  greater  mistake  can  be  made  than  to  think  that 
they  form  any  practical  answer  to  the  arguments  of 
those  who  would  lead  us  on  to  socialism.  Why  ? 
For  the  simple  reason  that,  as  we  have  throughout 
insisted,  men  are  not  now,  and  never  have  been,  in 
the  least  concerned  with,  or  influenced  by,  the  esti- 
mates which  scientists  or  any  other  class  of  persons 
may  form  of  the  probable  effects  of  their  present 
conduct  on  unborn  generations.  The  motives  which 
inspire  their  present  acts  are  of  quite  a  different  kind. 
But  it  is  these  motives  which  are  shaping  the  course 
of  events,  and  it  is  consequently  with  these,  and  these 
only,  that  we  have  to  deal  if  we  would  gauge  the 
character  and  dimensions  of  the  modern  socialist 
movement.     Let  us  see,  therefore,  in  what  way  the 


228  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

conception,  of  what  is  called  scientific  socialism — of 
modern  society  developing  towards  socialism  as  the 
result  of  forces  now  actually  at  work  amongst  us  — 
is  justified  or  the  contrary. 

According  to  Marx  the  dominant  factor  in  the 
evolution  through  which  we  are  passing  is  the  eco- 
nomic one.  The  era  in  which  we  are  living  began  in 
the  mediaeval  period  with  the  rise  of  capitalism.  To 
understand  what  capitalism  is  —  and  few  writers  have 
grasped  more  thoroughly  than  Marx  some  of  the  ulti- 
mate facts  which  underlie  the  institution  in  the  form 
in  which  he  attacked  it  —  we  have  to  get  behind  the 
superficial  phrases,  and  some  of  the  errors  of  the  polit- 
ical economists  of  the  old  school.  When  we  reach 
the  heart  of  the  matter  we  find  it  to  be,  according  to 
Marx,  a  system  by  which  the  capitalist  is  enabled  to 
appropriate  the  surplus  value  of  the  work  of  the 
labourers,  these  being  able  to  retain  as  wages  only 
what  represents  the  average  subsistence  necessary 
for  themselves  and  their  children  in  keeping  up  this 
supply  of  labour.  There  is  thus  an  inherent  antago- 
nism between  the  two  classes. 

As  the  conflict  takes  shape  it  begins  to  develop 
remarkable  features.  At  the  one  pole  we  have  the 
continued  appropriation  and  accumulation  of  surplus 
value,  with  the  ever-increasing  wealth  and  power  of 
those  in  whose  hands  it  is  concentrated.  At  the 
other  end  we  have  the  progressive  enslavement  and 
degradation  of  the  exploited  classes.  As  the  devel- 
opment continues,  the  workers,  on  the  one  hand, 
gradually  come  to  recognise  their  position  as  a  class 
and  become  possessed  of  a  sense  of  their  common 
interests.       On    the    other    hand,    the    competition 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  229 

amongst  the  capitalist  class  is  great  and  continually 
growing  ;  the  larger  capitalists  gradually  extinguish 
the  smaller  ones,  and  wealth  becomes  accumulated 
in  fewer  and  fewer  hands.  To  quote  Marx's  words  : 
—  "Along  with  the  constantly  diminishing  number 
of  the  magnates  of  capital,  who  usurp  and  monopolise 
all  advantages  of  this  process  of  transformation, 
grow  the  mass  of  misery,  oppression,  slavery,  degra- 
dation, exploitation  ;  but  with  this,  too,  grows  the 
revolt  of  the  working  class,  a  class  always  increasing 
in  numbers  and  disciplined,  united,  organised  by  the 
very  mechanism  of  the  process  of  capitalist  produc- 
tion itself.  The  monopoly  of  capital  becomes  a  fetter 
upon  the  mode  of  production,  which  has  sprung  up 
and  flourished  along  with  and  under  it.  Centrali- 
sation of  the  means  of  production  and  socialisation 
of  labour,  at  last,  reach  a  point  when  they  become 
incompatible  with  their  capitalist  integument.  This 
integument  is  burst  asunder.  The  knell  of  capitalist 
private  property  sounds."1  That  is  to  say,  the  state 
of  things  becomes  at  length  intolerable  ;  there  is  an- 
archy in  production,  accompanied  by  constantly-recur- 
ring commercial  crises ;  and  the  incapacity  of  the 
capitalist  classes  to  manage  the  productive  forces 
being  manifest,  public  opinion  at  last  comes  to  a  head. 
The  organised  workers  seize  possession  of  the  means 
of  production,  transforming  them  into  public  property, 
and  socialistic  production  becomes  henceforward  pos- 
sible. 

The  transformation  supposed  to  be  effected  in  the 
latter  stage  of  the  movement  is  thus  described  by 

1  Capital,  by  Karl  Marx,  English  translation  (Swan  Sonnenschein 
&  Co.,  1887),  vol.  ii.  pp.  788,  789. 


230  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

Frederick  Engels  :  "  With  the  seizing  of  the  means 
of  production  by  society,  production  of  commodities 
is  done  away  with,  and,  simultaneously,  the  mastery 
of  the  product  over  the  producer.  Anarchy  in  social 
production  is  replaced  by  systematic,  definite  organi- 
sation. The  struggle  for  individual  existence  disap- 
pears. Then,  for  the  first  time,  man,  in  a  certain 
sense,  is  finally  marked  off  from  the  rest  of  the  ani- 
mal kingdom,  and  emerges  from  mere  animal  condi- 
tions of  existence  into  really  human  ones.  The  whole 
sphere  of  the  conditions  which  environ  man,  and 
which  have  hitherto  ruled  man,  now  comes  under  the 
dominion  and  control  of  man,  who  now,  for  the  first 
time,  becomes  the  real  conscious  lord  of  Nature,  be- 
cause he  has  now  become  master  of  his  own  social 
organisation.  ...  It  is  the  ascent  of  man  from  the 
kingdom  of  necessity  to  the  kingdom  of  freedom."  1 

This  is  the  Marx-Engels  theory  of  our  modern  civ- 
ilisation, and  of  the  denouement  to  which  it  is  hasten- 
ing, so  far  as  justice  can  be  done  to  it  in  so  brief  a 
summary.  It  is  a  conception,  whatever  its  short- 
comings, of  power  and  originality  —  displaying,  de- 
spite its  errors,  a  deep  knowledge  of  social  forces  and 
a  masterful  grasp  of  some  of  the  first  principles  under- 
lying our  complex  modern  life. 

Now,  the  first  fact  which  it  is  necessary  to  keep 
clearly  before  the  mind  in  dealing  with  this  theory  of 
society  is,  that  this  relationship  of  capital  to  labour 
which  Marx  has  described,  is  nothing  more  than  the 
present-day  expression  of  a  social  relationship  which 
has  existed  throughout  the  greater  part  of  human  his- 

1  Socialism,  Utopian  and  Scientific,  by  Frederick  Engels,  translated 
by  Edward  Aveling,  1892. 


VIII 


MODERN  SOCIALISM  231 


tory.  There  is  nothing  new  or  special  about  the  fact 
which  underlies  the  theory  of  surplus  value  ;  nor  is  it 
peculiar  to  the  capitalist  era  any  more  than  to  any 
other  era.  We  had  what  corresponds  to  the  appro- 
priation of  the  surplus  value  of  the  work  of  the  lower 
masses  of  the  people  by  the  ruling  classes  in  all  the 
early  military  societies,  in  the  Greek  States,  and 
under  the  Roman  Republic  and  Empire.  We  had  it 
in  a  marked  form  under  the  institution  of  slavery, 
and  it  continued  under  the  feudal  system  which  pre- 
ceded the  rise  of  modern  capitalism.  With  the  dis- 
coveries of  science,  and  their  application  to  the  wants 
of  life,  we  have  it  only  under  another  phase  in  the 
resulting  era  of  expansion  and  capitalism  in  which  we 
are  now  living.1 

But  while  this  fact  must  never  be  lost  sight  of,  it 
must,  at  the  same  time,  be  noticed  that  there  is  a 

1  The  younger  school  of  economists  in  England  have  not  yet  quite 
done  justice  to  Marx's  conception  of  the  state  of  capitalistic  society 
which  he  describes.  It  is  quite  true,  as  Professor  Marshall  remarks 
("  Some  Aspects  of  Competition,"  Journal  Roy.  Stat.  Soc.  December 
1890),  that  socialist  schemes  founded  thereon  "  seem  to  be  vitiated  by 
want  of  attention  to  the  analysis  which  the  economists  of  the  modern 
age  have  made  of  the  functions  of  the  undertaker  of  business  enter- 
prises," and  that  they  "  seem  to  think  too  much  of  competition  as  the 
exploiting  of  labour  by  capital,  of  the  poor  by  the  wealthy,  and  too  little 
of  it  as  the  constant  experiment  by  the  ablest  men  for  their  several 
tasks,  each  trying  to  discover  a  new  way  in  which  to  attain  some  im- 
portant end. "  But  it  must  also  be  kept  well  in  mind  —  and  the  rising 
school  of  economic  science  can  do  nothing  but  good  in  keeping  the  fact 
always  clearly  in  view  —  that  the  rights  and  privileges  of  capital  and 
wealth  have  hitherto  been  much  more  than  those  which  necessarily 
attach  to  "  the  function  of  the  undertaker  of  business  enterprises  "  in 
order  to  obtain  the  highest  possible  efficiency.  Marx  went  much  too 
far,  but  the  idea  underlying  his  conception  of  the  exploitation  of  labour 
in  the  past  is,  in  the  main,  sound  and  scientific. 


232  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

development  taking  place  in  this  relationship  of 
labour  to  capital,  a  development  of  the  most  signifi- 
cant kind  which  is  likely,  as  time  goes  on,  to  control 
and  dominate  the  entire  political  outlook.  Although 
Marx,  it  appears  to  the  writer,  has  been  quite  mis- 
taken as  to  the  nature  of  the  development  which  is 
taking  place  in  our  civilisation,  and  as  to  the  direction 
in  which  it  is  carrying  us ;  it  will,  nevertheless,  in  all 
probability  be  recognised  in  the  future  that  he  has 
been  much  nearer  the  truth  in  regarding,  as  he  did, 
the  prevailing  relationship  of  the  workers  to  the  cap- 
italist classes,  than  the  hitherto  dominant  school  of 
political  economists  have  been  in  regarding  it  as  the 
natural  and  normal  condition  of  the  two  parties,  any 
disturbance  of  which  must  involve  the  dislocation  of 
the  entire  social  machinery  of  the  modern  world. 
Not  the  least  important  part  of  the  work  which  Marx 
has  already  accomplished  (for  to  the  influence  of  the 
socialist  party  the  change  is  undoubtedly  due)  is  the 
tendency  already  visible  amongst  the  younger  and  ris- 
ing school  of  political  economists,  particularly  in  Eng- 
land, to  question  whether  this  relationship  is  natural 
and  normal,  and  whether  the  extraordinary  powers  and 
privileges  which  capital  has  inherited  from  a  past  order 
of  society  —  powers  begetting,  to  use  words  of  Profes- 
sor Marshall,  "  the  cruelty  and  waste  of  irresponsible 
competition  and  the  licentious  use  of  wealth,"  l —  con- 
stitute any  necessary  feature  of  the  institution  of  pri- 
vate capital  in  enabling  it  to  discharge  the  beneficial 
function  it  is  held  to  be  capable  of  performing  for  society. 

1  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  December  1890,  p.  643. 
Reprint  of  Address  as  President  of  Economic  Section,  British  Associa- 
tion, Meeting  September  1890. 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  233 

Now,  the  development  which  Marx  contemplated 
is,  it  may  be  observed,  thoroughly  materialistic ;  it 
takes  no  account  of  those  prime  evolutionary  forces 
which  lie  behind  the  whole  process  of  our  social  de- 
velopment. The  phenomenon  which  underlies  what 
has  been  called  the  exploitation  of  labour  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  in  no  way  new  or  special  to  our  time. 
What  then  is  the  special  factor  in  modern  life  which 
has  enabled  Marx  to  anticipate  the  growing  power  of 
the  workers,  and  as  a  result  to  picture  with  some 
degree  of  verisimilitude  a  stage  at  which  it  will  be- 
come irresistible,  and  at  which  they  will  proceed  to 
seize  and  socialise  the  means  of  production?  His 
followers  may  reply  that  it  is  the  inherent  tendency 
of  the  process  of  economic  evolution  actually  in  prog- 
ress. Yet  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  If  any  of 
Marx's  followers  really  hold  this  view,  they  are  de- 
ceiving themselves.  The  economic  problem  per  se 
has  no  inherent  tendency  whatever  which  it  did  not 
possess  under  any  other  phase  of  society,  and  from 
the  beginning.  The  new  factor  in  the  problem  is 
one  altogether  outside  of  and  independent  of  the 
economic  situation. 

If  we  look  round  at  the  position  of  the  workers  at 
the  present  day,  and  note  their  relations  to  the  state 
and  to  the  capitalist  class,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
one  absolutely  new  and  special  feature  which  dis- 
tinguishes these  relationships  now,  as  compared  with 
all  past  periods,  is,  that  the  exploited  classes,  as  the 
result  of  an  evolution  long  in  progress,  and  still  con- 
tinuing with  unabated  pace,  have  been  admitted  to 
the  exercise  of  political  power  on  a  footing  which 
tends  more  and  more  to  be  one  of  actual  equality 


234  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

with  those  who  have  hitherto  held  them  in  subjec- 
tion. This  evolution  has  its  causes  exclusively  in 
that  ethical  development,  the  course  of  which  has 
been  traced  in  the  previous  chapter.  It  is  the  car- 
dinal and  essential  feature  of  the  situation  dominat- 
ing the  entire  outlook,  but  entirely  independent  of 
the  economic  question. 

It  will  help  materially  towards  the  clearer  under- 
standing of  the  position  if  this  feature  of  the  situa- 
tion is  kept  well  in  view.  We  may  perceive  the 
importance  of  the  factor  at  once  if  it  is  taken  away. 
The  materialistic  evolution  of  Marx  is  left  without 
its  motive  power.  For,  if  we  are  to  have  only  the 
frank  selfishness  of  the  exploiting  classes  on  the  one 
side,  and  the  equally  materialistic  selfishness  of  the 
exploited  classes  on  the  other,  "the  inherent  ten- 
dency of  modern  society  "  disappears.  There  would 
remain  nothing  whatever  in  the  present  constitution 
of  society,  economic  or  otherwise,  which  would  lead 
us  to  expect  any  progress  towards  the  culmination 
which  Marx  describes,  but  everything  which  would 
lead  us  to  anticipate  the  repetition  of  a  well-worn 
tale  of  history.  If  we  are  to  have  nothing  but  mate- 
rialistic selfishness  on  the  one  side  leagued  against 
equally  materialistic  selfishness  on  the  other,  then 
the  power-holding  classes,  being  still  immeasurably 
the  stronger,  would  be  quite  capable  of  taking  care 
of  themselves,  and  would  indeed  be  very  foolish  if 
they  did  not  do  so.  Instead  of  enfranchising,  edu- 
cating, and  raising  the  lower  masses  of  the  people 
(as  they  are  now  doing  as  the  result  of  a  develop- 
ment which  Marx  has  not  taken  into  account),  they 
would  know  perfectly  well,  as  they  have  always  done 


viii  MODERN  SOCIALISM  235 

in  the  past,  how  "to  keep  the  people  in  their  places," 
i.e.  in  ignorance  and  political  disability,  all  the  mod- 
ern tendency  of  capital  towards  competition  and  con- 
centration notwithstanding. 

But,  it  will  be  answered,  the  feature  of  our  times, 
which  there  is  no  gainsaying,  is  the  humanitarian 
tendency  in  the  contrary  direction.  The  situation 
with  which  we  have  to  deal  is  one  in  which  this 
materialistic  selfishness  does  not  exist.  Never  in  hu- 
man history  have  the  minds  of  men  been  moved  with 
nobler  or  more  generous  ideas  towards  each  other ; 
and  the  whole  tendency  of  our  civilisation  has  been, 
and  continues  to  be,  to  develop  this  disposition.  Quite 
so.  This  is,  indeed,  the  reason  why  we  are  only  likely 
to  misinterpret,  as  Marx  has  undoubtedly  done,  the 
nature  and  tendency  of  the  economic  development 
we  are  undergoing,  by  regarding  it  apart  in  itself  as 
the  key  to  the  whole  situation,  instead  of  as  only  a 
subordinate  phase  of  an  immensely  wider  evolution- 
ary process.  From  the  larger  outlook  the  view  is 
immeasurably  widened.  The  development  that  will 
fill  the  history  of  the  twentieth  century,  will  certainly 
be  the  change  in  the  relations  of  capital,  labour,  and 
the  state  ;  but  once  we  have  grasped  the  fundamental 
laws  behind  that  development  as  a  whole,  it  becomes 
clear  that  the  change,  vast  and  significant  as  it  un- 
doubtedly promises  to  be,  will,  nevertheless,  be  one 
essentially  and  profoundly  different  both  in  character 
and  results  from  that  which  Marx  anticipated. 

To  understand  the  nature  of  this  change,  it  is 
desirable  now  to  call  to  mind  once  more  the  leading 
features  of  that  remarkable  process  of  social  develop- 
ment which  has  been  in   progress   throughout   the 


236  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

history  of  our  civilisation.  We  found  this  process  to 
consist  essentially  in  the  slow  disintegration  of  that 
military  type  of  society  which  reached  its  highest 
development  in  the  Roman  Empire.  The  change  has 
been  gradually  accomplished  against  the  prolonged 
resistance  encountered  under  innumerable  forms  of 
those  privileged  classes  which  obtained,  under  this 
constitution  of  society,  the  influence  they  have  in 
considerable  measure,  although  to  a  gradually  dimin- 
ishing extent,  continued  to  enjoy  down  into  the  time 
in  which  we  are  living.  Let  us  see  then,  in  the  first 
place,  what  have  been  the  tendencies  of  this  process 
so  far,  for  this  must  evidently  be  a  most  important 
consideration  in  endeavouring  to  form  an  estimate  of 
the  direction  in  which  it  is  carrying  us. 

If  we  look  at  this  process  as  a  whole,  it  will  be  seen 
that,  so  far  as  it  has  proceeded,  it  presents  two  easily 
recognised  features.  There  have  been  two  distinct 
tendencies  displayed  therein,  each  constant,  growing, 
unmistakable.  In  the  first  place  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that,  allowing  for  all  disappointments  and  draw- 
backs, the  social  progress,  moral  and  material,  which 
the  masses  of  the  people  have  made  since  the  process 
commenced  has  been  great,  and  has  been,  although 
interrupted  at  times,  practically  continuous.  It  must 
be  remembered  that,  at  the  period  at  which  we  take 
up  the  process,  the  lower  masses  of  the  people  amongst 
the  present  European  nations  possessed  scarcely  any 
social  or  political  rights.  Great  numbers  of  them 
lived  continually  on  the  brink  of  starvation  ;  military 
force  was  almost  the  only  law  society  recognised ;  and 
slavery,  which  had  hitherto  been  an  almost  universal 
human   institution,  had   behind  it  not  only  all  the 


VIII 


MODERN  SOCIALISM  237 


authority  of  force,  but  the  unquestioned  sanction  of 
the  highest  civilisation  which  man  had  so  far  reached. 
The  instincts  which  led  men  to  prey  on  each  other 
were  scarcely  more  restrained  than  amongst  the  lower 
animals,  and  it  must  not  be  assumed  that  this  was  the 
result  of  the  disorganised  state  of  society ;  for,  fol- 
lowing the  example  of  the  ancient  empires,  all  asso- 
ciations of  men  with  any  definite  pretensions  to  a 
national  existence  aspired  as  a  legitimate  object  to 
prey  on  other  peoples.  The  feudal  lords,  in  like 
manner,  preyed  on  their  neighbours  whenever  their 
resources  and  following  gave  them  hope  of  success, 
so  that  scarcely  any  district  was  long  free  from  the 
horrors  and  outrage  of  war  in  one  shape  or  another. 

No  glamour  can  hide  the  wretchedness  of  the 
masses  of  the  people  throughout  the  early  stages  of 
the  history  of  the  present  European  peoples.  Their 
position  was,  at  best,  but  one  of  slavery  slightly  modi- 
fied. The  worse  than  animal  conditions  to  which 
they  were  subject,  the  unwholesome  food  on  which 
they  fared,  and  the  state  of  general  destitution  in 
which  they  lived,  must,  in  all  probability,  be  held  to 
be  associated  with  the  general  prevalence  in  Europe 
late  into  the  Middle  Ages  of  widely  prevalent  dis- 
eases that  have  since  become  extinct.  The  terrible 
"  plague "  epidemics  periodically  devastated  Europe 
on  a  scale  and  to  an  extent  which  the  modern  world 
has  no  experience  of,  and  which  we  can  only  very 
imperfectly  realise.  After  the  break-up  of  military 
feudalism  the  condition  of  things  was  little  better. 
The  people  were  crushed  under  the  weight  of  rents, 
services,  taxations,  and  exactions  of  all  kinds.  Trade, 
commerce,  industry,  and  agriculture  were  harassed, 


238  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

restricted,  and  impoverished  by  the  multitude  of  bur- 
thens imposed  on  them  —  burthens  which  only  during 
the  last  hundred  years  have  been  eased  or  removed 
in  most  Western  countries.1 

Slow  though  the  improvement  in  material  conditions 
has  been,  it  has  been,  nevertheless,  unmistakable  as 
the  people  have  gradually  acquired  a  larger  and  larger 
share  of  political  power;  but  it  has,  naturally,  been 
greatest  as  we  approach  our  own  times.  No  careful 
student  of  history  can  ignore  the  significance  of  the 
improvement  in  the  position  of  the  masses  of  the 
people  which  has  taken  place  in  England  and  France 
during  the  nineteenth  century ;  nor  of  the  position 
the  working  classes  have  already  come  to  occupy  in 
the  United  States  and  some  of  the  British  colonies. 
In  England  the  progress,  as  we  approach  our  own 
day,  has  been  enormous.  At  the  bottom  of  the  scale 
we  find,  as  Mr.  Giffen  showed  a  few  years  ago,2  an 

1  In  the  Journal  de  la  Societe  de  Statistique  de  Paris,  March  1889, 
Alfred  Neymarck  enumerates  some  of  the  burthens  imposed  on  the 
peasant  in  France  one  hundred  years  ago.  "Without  taking  into 
account  services  to  be  paid  for  in  kind,  he  was  called  upon  to  pay 
dimes,  tailles,  capitations,  vingtiemes,  and  centiemes,  corvees,  aides, 
gabelles,  etc.  If  he  was  desirous  of  selling  in  the  markets  open  to  him 
the  produce  of  his  labour,  he  was  forced  to  pay  the  dues  on  mesurage, 
piquetage,  minage,  sterlage,  palette,  ecuellee,  pied  fourchu,  angayage, 
eprouvage,  and  etalage  ;  that  is  to  say  he  was  mulcted  for  each  measure 
of  grain  sold;  for  each  cow,  pig,  or  sheep;  for  each  load  of  wheat 
brought  in  by  strangers;  for  each  basket  containing  fowls,  eggs,  butter, 
and  cheese,  and  for  each  horse  examined  and  sold  "  (see  translation 
of  paper  in  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  June  1889).  See 
also  Mill's  Political  Economy,  Book  v.  chap,  xi.,  for  an  account  of  the 
restrictions  and  burthens  which  the  state  formerly  placed  upon  commerce 
and  manufactures. 

2  Vide  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  December  1887 ;  Pres- 
idential Address,  Economic  Section,  British  Association  Meeting,  1887. 


viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  239 

almost  continuous  decrease  in  the  proportion  of 
paupers  since  1855.  The  wages  of  almost  all  classes 
have  greatly  risen,  and  their  purchasing  power  is 
greater.  The  savings  bank  deposits  and  depositors 
show  a  progressive  increase  which  is  most  striking. 
The  houses  in  which  the  masses  of  the  people  live 
are  better,  and  continually  increase  in  value  ;  the 
conditions  of  life  are  more  healthy  and  refined,  and 
continually  tend  towards  improvement.  The  hours 
of  labour  are  much  less,  and  tend  towards  further 
reduction ;  the  conditions  of  work  have  been  greatly 
improved ;  and  education,  amusement,  and  recreation 
are  provided  for  the  people  on  a  greatly  extended 
scale.  Nay,  at  last,  we  have  the  rising  school  of 
orthodox  political  economists  in  England  already  be- 
ginning to  question  whether  poverty  itself  may  not 
be  abolished,  and  whether  it  is  necessarily  any  more 
a  permanent  human  institution  than  was  slavery. 

It  has  been  the  same  in  France.  It  must  be  re- 
membered that  we  have  to  compare  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  mass  of  the  population,  not  with  their 
state  under  some  ideal  organisation  of  society,  but 
with  their  actual  condition  in  the  past.  In  a  very 
striking  comparison  of  the  present  and  the  past  in 
France  by  Alfred  Neymarck,  which  appeared  in  the 
Journal  de  la  Soci/t/  de  Statistique  de  Paris  for  March 
1889,  some  interesting  facts  are  recorded.  "During 
the  last  centuries,"  says  the  author,  "famine,  which 
we  now  only  know  by  name,  and  of  which  we  have 
had  no  practical  experience,  was,  in  some  sort,  a  per- 
manent institution  on  the  fertile  soil  of  France.  In 
the  twelfth  century  it  made  its  appearance  over  fifty 
times.     Under  Louis  XIV.  in  1663  and  1690,  and  in 


240  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

1790,  whole  populations  were  absolutely  dying  of  hun- 
ger." *  A  century  ago  the  peasant  in  France  suffered 
continual  privation ;  such  a  condition  had  become 
chronic.  "  White  bread  was  a  thing  unknown  ;  once 
or  twice  a  year,  at  Easter  or  at  other  high  festivals, 
a  piece  of  bacon  was  regarded  as  a  luxury.  Oil  of 
rape-seed  and  beech-oil  were  used  to  render  the  most 
common  vegetables  palatable.  The  ordinary  beverage 
was  water ;  beer  was  dear,  cider  not  less  so,  and  wine 
was  a  luxury  exceedingly  rare." 

As  against  this  the  author  contrasts  the  present 
condition  of  the  lower  classes.  "  One  has  only  to 
glance  at  the  labouring  man  when  engaged  at  his 
work,  to  see  that  the  quality  of  his  clothing  has  im- 
proved, and  that  the  shoe  has  replaced  the  sabot. 
Instead  of  the  tattered  garments,  veritable  rags  in 
fact,  formerly  worn  by  women,  has  succeeded  printed 
calicoes,  wool,  and  cloth ;  and  in  the  poorest  houses 
it  is  a  common  thing  to  find  linen,  clean  and  white, 
put  away  for  use  on  Sundays  and  fite  days,  and  it  is 
by  no  means  unusual  to  find  in  a  large  number  of 
cottages  both  books  and  flowers.  Wages  have  in- 
creased three,  four,  five,  and  even  tenfold  in  certain 
industries.  Formerly  a  workman  barely  gained,  and 
that  with  the  hardest  labour,  from  one  to  two  francs 
a  day  ;  he  now  receives  from  five,  six,  eight,  and  some- 
times ten  francs."  2  The  average  duration  of  life  has, 
the  author  says,  increased ;  the  rate  of  mortality  is 
lower ;  the  quality  of  food  has  improved ;  house  ac- 
commodation is  better ;  clothing  more  healthy ;  and 
temperance  more  extensively  practised. 

1  Vide  Translation,  Journal  Royal  Statistical  Society,  June  1889. 

2  Ibid. 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  241 

In  whatever  direction  we  look  we  find  evidence  of 
this  same  tendency.  Foreign  economic  writers  are 
already  beginning  to  remark  that  one  of  the  most 
striking  of  recent  economic  phenomena  in  England 
is  the  check  which  appears  to  have  been  given  to  the 
growth  of  large  fortunes,  and  the  wider  and  more  even 
distribution  of  wealth  which  is  taking  place.  The 
same  tendency  is  visible  in  France ;  M.  Claudio  Jan- 
net  has  recently  stated  that  there  are  not  now  in 
France  more  than  700  to  800  persons  with  .£10,000 
a  year,  and  not  more  than  18,000  to  20,000  with 
£2000  and  upwards.  He  shows  also  that  whereas 
the  national  debt  in  that  country  has  doubled  from 
1869  to  1 88 1,  the  holders  have  quadrupled.  The 
number  of  small  holders  of  bonds  tends  to  greatly 
increase,  and  he  mentions  that  one-half  of  the  bonds 
of  the  city  of  Paris  are  owned  by  holders  of  a  single 
bond.  Other  figures  quoted  are  also  striking.  Out 
of  8,302,272  inhabited  houses  in  France,  he  states 
that  5,460,355,  or  more  than  65  per  cent,  are  occupied 
by  their  owners.1     Some  years  ago  Mr.  Goschen  fur- 

1  See  Le  Capital,  la  Speculation  et  la  Finance  au  xixe  Siecle,  par 
Claudio  Jannet,  Paris,  1892.  The  author  says  (p.  30)  :  "  Le  recense- 
ment  des  habitations  auquel  l'administration  des  contributions  directes 
a  procede  en  1888  pour  evaluer  la  propriete  b&tie,  a  mis  ce  fait  en  pleine 
evidence.  Sur  8,302,272  maisons  d'habitation  (deduction  faite  de 
612,251  non  occupees),  5,460,355  sont  habitees  par  leur  proprietaire, 
ce  qui  fait  plus  de  65  p.  100,  les  deux  tiers,  pour  la  France  entiere." 

His  statement  respecting  the  gradual  increase  in  the  number  of 
holders  of  the  public  funds  is  also  very  interesting.  He  says  (p.  32)  : 
"  Le  nombre  des  inscriptions  de  rentes  etait,  en  1886,  de  3,861,280 
pour  743  millions  de  rente  3  pour  100  et  4!  ;  au  31  decembre  1889,  il 
etait  de  4,708,348  pour  856  millions  de  rente.  Cela  ne  veut  pas  dire 
qu'il  y  ait  un  pareil  nombre  de  rentiers,  car  le  meme  personne  possede 
souvent  plusieurs  inscriptions.  M.  Leroy-Beaulieu  evaluait  a  environ 
R 


242  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

nished  us  with  an  equally  interesting  set  of  facts 
exhibiting  the  tendency  to  the  increase  of  moderate 
incomes  in  England.1 

The  conditions  of  life  of  the  masses  of  the  people 
show  everywhere  a  progressive  improvement  —  the 
improvement,  so  far,  following  the  development  by 
which  the  people  have  attained  to  a  larger  and  larger 
share  of  political  power.  This  feature  is  sometimes 
dwelt  upon  by  those  who  wish  to  draw  conclusions 
therefrom  favourable  to  the  continuance  of  the  exist- 
ing order  of  things.  But  we  must  not  on  that  account 
ignore  the  facts  altogether,  as  is  sometimes  done  by 
writers  of  extreme  views  on  the  other  side.  In  esti- 
mating the  situation,  our  first  duty  clearly  is  to  take 
all  its  features  fairly  into  account ;  and  when  this  is 
done  it  must  be  frankly  admitted  that  there  is  no 
justification  whatever  for  either  thinking  or  speaking 
of  the  past  century  as  a  period  of  progressive  degen- 
eration for  the  working  classes.  All  the  facts  point 
unmistakably  the  other  way. 

If  we  look  now  in  another  quarter,  the  second  ten- 
dency of  the  developmental  tendency  which  has  been, 
so  far,  in  progress,  is  even  more  clearly  discernible. 
The  movement  which  is  thus  slowly  raising  the  con- 
dition of  the  masses,  and  bringing  about  more  equal 
conditions  of  life  amongst  the  people,  has  not  hitherto 
operated  to  suspend  the  rivalry  and  competition  of 

un  million  le  nombre  des  possesseurs  de  rente  en  1881.  II  est  evi- 
demment  plus  considerable  aujourd'hui  car,  au  fur  et  a  mesure  que  les 
grands  emprunts  se  classent,  la  rente  se  dissemine  davantage.  Tandis 
que,  de  1869  a  1891,  le  chiffre  total  des  rentes  doublait,  le  nombre  des 
inscriptions  quadruplait." 

1  Vide  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  December  1887. 


viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  243 

life.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  carefully  we  con- 
sider the  whole  process,  the  more  clearly  does  it 
appear  that  its  tendency  has  been  in  the  opposite 
direction.  It  is  in  countries  like  England  and  the 
United  States,  where  the  process  has  advanced  fur- 
thest, that  the  rivalry  and  competition  have  such 
well-marked  features.  The  conditions  have  tended 
to  become  freer,  fairer,  more  humanised.  But  so 
also  have  the  stress  and  energy  of  life,  developed 
thereby,  tended  to  reach  a  point  distinctly  higher 
than  ever  before  attained  in  human  existence. 

The  tendency  amongst  all  the  advanced  peoples 
appears  to  be  unmistakable.  It  is  everywhere  to 
allow  the  fullest  possible  scope  for  the  development 
of  the  personality  of  the  individual,  and  the  widest 
possible  range  of  opportunity  to  follow  wherever  his 
powers  or  abilities  lead  him.  We  have,  in  a  preced- 
ing chapter,  dwelt  upon  the  extent  to  which  this 
tendency  is  displayed  in  almost  every  department  of 
life  amongst  the  leading  Western  peoples,  and  how 
unmistakably  it  constitutes  the  characteristic  feature 
of  the  life  of  those  sections  of  the  race  which  are 
obtaining  the  greatest  ascendency  in  the  world. 

Looking  back  over  the  process  of  evolution  which 
has  been  unfolding  in  our  civilisation,  there  can  be 
no  mistaking  its  nature.  The  slow  break-up  of  the 
military  type  of  society  out  of  which  it  arose ;  the  ab- 
olition of  slavery  ;  the  steady  restriction  of  the  power 
retained  over  the  people  by  those  privileged  classes 
who  obtained  their  rights  and  influence  under  an 
earlier  form  of  society;  the  disintegration  of  mili- 
tary feudalism  ;  the  slow  and  painfully-achieved  steps 
in  the  emancipation  (still  incomplete)  of  agriculture, 


244  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

trade,  and  commerce,  from  the  rights  which  modified 
feudalism  continued  to  retain  over  them ;  the  hard- 
won  stages  in  the  political  emancipation  of  the  masses 
(now  approaching  completion  amongst  the  Western 
peoples),  accompanied  by  a  gradual  improvement  in 
the  conditions  of  life  amongst  the  lower  classes  — 
these  have  all  been  the  well-marked  stages  in  a  single 
developmental  process  still  pursuing  its  onward  course 
amongst  us.  The  inherent  tendency  of  the  process 
from  the  beginning  has  been  to  ultimately  bring  all 
the  excluded  people  into  the  rivalry  of  life.  But  its 
significance  has  consisted  in  its  tendency  to  raise 
this  rivalry  to  the  highest  level  of  efficiency  it  has 
ever  reached. 

It  would  seem  that  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to 
the  nature  and  the  tendency  of  the  development  so 
far.  What  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  it  destined  to 
accomplish  in  the  future  ?  The  answer  must  appar- 
ently be,  that  it  must  complete  the  process  of  evolu- 
tion in  progress,  by  eventually  bringing  all  the  people 
into  the  rivalry  of  life,  not  only  on  a  footing  of  polit- 
ical equality,  but  on  conditions  of  equal  social  oppor- 
tunities. This  is  the  end  which  the  developmental 
forces  at  work  in  our  civilisation  are  apparently  des- 
tined to  achieve  in  the  social  life  of  those  people 
amongst  whom  it  is  allowed  to  follow  its  natural  and 
normal  course  uninterrupted  by  disturbing  causes,  — 
an  end,  when  its  relationships  are  perceived,  as  mov- 
ing to  the  imagination,  as  vast  and  transforming  in 
character,  as  that  which  Marx  anticipated.  But  it  is 
an  end  essentially  and  profoundly  different  in  char- 
acter. Marx  contemplated  our  Western  civilisation 
culminating  in  a  condition   of  society  which  it  was 


viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  245 

difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  any  one  who  had  real- 
ised the  essential  unity  and  continuity  under  all  out- 
ward forms  of  the  developmental  forces  at  work  in 
human  society,  to  imagine ;  a  state  in  which  the  laws 
that  had  operated  continuously  from  the  beginning 
of  life  were  to  be  suddenly  interrupted  and  finally 
suspended.  But  the  state  towards  which  we  are  trav- 
elling is  apparently  not  one  in  which  these  laws  will 
be  suspended ;  it  will  be  only  the  highest  phase 
reached  in  human  society  of  the  same  cosmic  process 
which  has  been  in  operation  from  the  beginning. 
Great  and  transforming  as  the  coming  changes  will 
in  all  probability  be,  no  bouleversement  of  society  is 
to  be  expected.  We  are  moving,  and  shall  merely 
continue  to  move,  by  orderly  stages  to  the  goal 
towards  which  the  face  of  society  has  in  reality  been 
set  from  the  beginning  of  our  civilisation. 

If  we  endeavour  to  present  clearly  to  our  minds 
the  nature  of  this  process  as  a  whole,  we  shall  find 
that  we  are  now  in  a  position  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  that  social  development  towards  which 
our  times  are  ripening,  and  with  which  the  history 
of  the  twentieth  century  will  undoubtedly  be  filled. 
Nay,  more,  we  are  enabled  to  distinguish,  with  some 
degree  of  clearness,  the  stages  through  which  it  must 
carry  us  in  the  immediate  future.  The  period  through 
which  we  are  passing  is  perceived  to  be  one  of  transi- 
tion. A  definite,  long-drawn-out,  and  altogether  re- 
markable era  in  the  history  of  our  civilisation  is  coming 
to  a  close  amongst  the  more  advanced  peoples.  We 
are  entering  on  a  new  era.  The  political  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  masses  is  well-nigh  accomplished ;  the 
process  which  will  occupy  the  next  period  will   be 


246  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

that  of  their  social  enfranchisement.  The  people 
have  been,  at  last,  admitted  to  equal  political  rights  ; 
in  the  next  stage  they  must  apparently  be  admitted 
to  equal  social  opportunities.  When  the  nature  of 
the  transition  is  perceived,  it  becomes  clear  also  that 
the  questions  around  which  the  conflict  of  social 
forces  must  centre  in  the  immediate  future  are  just 
those  questions  the  socialist  movement  has  brought 
into  such  prominence,  namely,  those  affecting  the 
existing  rights  of  capital  and  the  present  distribution 
of  wealth. 

In  one  of  those  frequent  flashes  wherewith  Marx, 
for  a  moment,  lights  up  the  foundations  of  present- 
day  society,  he  asserts  that  "the  economic  structure 
of  (present)  capitalist  society  has  grown  out  of  the 
economic  structure  of  feudal  society."  1  This  is  a  fact 
which  has  not  yet  been  fully  realised  by  those  pro- 
gressive parties  amongst  us,  who,  having  for  the  most 
part  accepted  the  ideas  of  the  older  school  of  econo- 
mists as  to  the  relationships  of  labour,  capital,  and 
the  state,  have  obtained  therefrom  a  false  sense  of 
the  continued  normalcy  and  rigidity  of  these  relation- 
ships. We  have,  however,  only  to  watch  closely  the 
wave  of  change  which  is  passing  over  economic  sci- 
ence in  England  to  learn  in  what  a  large  measure  the 
truth  underlying  Marx's  statement  is  already  being 
perceived  and  applied  by  the  younger  and  rising 
school  of  economists. 

There  is  a  growing  and  highly  significant  tendency 
amongst  this  school  to  question  whether  the  present 
"  cruelty  and  waste  of  irresponsible  competition,  and 

1  Capital,  vol.  ii.  chap.  xxvi.  English  translation,  Swan  Sonnen- 
schein  and  Co. 


vhi  MODERN   SOCIALISM  247 

the  licentious  use  of  wealth,"  do  really  form  any 
essential  feature  of  the  institution  of  private  capital, 
or  any  necessary  accompaniment  of  "the  services 
which  competition  renders  to  society,  by  tending  to 
put  the  ablest  men  into  the  most  important  posts, 
the  next  ablest  into  the  next  most  important,  and  so 
on,  and  by  giving  to  those  in  each  grade  freedom  for 
the  full  exercise  of  their  faculties."  *  It  is  being 
questioned  with  growing  confidence  by  this  school 
whether,  allowing  "  that  industrial  progress  depends 
on  our  getting  the  right  men  into  the  right  places 
and  giving  them  a  free  hand  and  sufficient  incitement 
to  exert  themselves  to  the  utmost,"  it  also  follows 
"  that  nothing  less  than  the  enormous  fortunes  which 
successful  men  now  make  and  retain  would  suffice  for 
that  purpose."  Professor  Marshall  goes  so  far  as  to 
hold  that  this  last  position  is  untenable,  and  that  "the 
present  extreme  inequalities  of  wealth  tend  in  many 
ways  to  prevent  human  faculties  from  being  turned 
to  their  best  account."  And  he  continues  :  "All  his- 
tory shows  that  a  man  will  exert  himself  nearly  as 
much  to  secure  a  small  rise  in  income  as  a  large  one, 
provided  he  knows  beforehand  what  he  stands  to 
gain,  and  is  in  no  fear  of  having  the  expected  fruits 
of  his  exertions  taken  away  from  him  by  arbitrary 
spoliation.  If  there  were  any  fear  of  that  he  would 
not  do  his  best,  but  if  the  conditions  of  the  country 
were  such  that  a  moderate  income  gave  as  good  a 
social  position  as  a  large  one  does  now ;  if  to  have 
earned  a  moderate  income  were  a  strong  presumptive 

1  Vide  "  Some  Aspects  of  Competition,"  by  Professor  Alfred  Marshall, 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  December  1 890.  Reprint  of 
Address  as  President  of  Economic  Section,  British  Association,  1890. 


248  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

proof  that  a  man  had  surpassed  able  rivals  in  the 
attempt  to  do  a  difficult  thing  well,  then  the  hope  of 
earning  such  an  income  would  offer  to  all  but  the 
most  sordid  natures  inducements  almost  as  strong 
as  they  are  now,  when  there  is  an  equal  hope  of 
earning  a  large  one."1 

These  are  all  indications  of  the  direction  in  which 
we  are  travelling  —  and  indications  of  the  utmost 
significance  at  the  present  time  as  coming  from  the 
younger  orthodox  school  of  economists  in  England. 
The  position  occupied  by  this  party  is  already  clearly 
defined.  "  They  are  most  anxious  to  preserve  the 
freedom  of  the  individual  to  try  new  paths  on  his  own 
responsibility.  They  regard  this  as  the  vital  service- 
which  free  competition  renders  to  progress  ;  and  de- 
sire, on  scientific  grounds,  to  disentangle  the  case  for 
it,  from  the  case  for  such  institutions  as  tend  to  main- 
tain extreme  inequalities  of  wealth  ;  to  which  some  of 
them  are  strongly  opposed."  2    • 

The  nature  of  the  position  which  has  been  reached 
amongst  the  advanced  sections  of  the  Western  peo- 
ples thus  emerges  more  clearly  into  view.  Occu- 
pied as  these  peoples  have  been  for  a  prolonged 
period  in  winning  and  consolidating  their  political 
freedom,  they  as  a  consequence  have  tended  —  no 
less  in  the  United  States  than  in  Germany,  France, 
and  England  —  to  magnify  as  the  final  end  the  occu- 
pation of  a  merely  preliminary  position.  We  have 
come  to  believe  that  the  feudal   system  is  defunct. 

1  Vide  "  Some  Aspects  of  Competition,"  by  Professor  Alfred  Marshall, 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  December  1890.  Reprint  of 
Address  as  President  of  Economic  Section,  British  Association,  1890. 

2  Ibid. 


vin  MODERN   SOCIALISM  249 

But  the  real  fact,  as  Marx  realised  more  clearly  than 
the  older  economists,  is,  that  the  dead  hand  of  feu- 
dalism still  presses  with  crushing  weight  upon  the 
people  through  almost  all  the  forms  and  institutions 
of  present-day  society.  A  large  part  of  the  existing 
unregulated  and  uncontrolled  rights  of  wealth  and 
capital  are  in  reality  merely  the  surviving  rights  of 
feudalism  adapted  to  new  conditions.  Education 
must  in  time  bring  us  to  see  that  their  continued 
existence  is  incompatible  with  the  attainment  of  the 
ideal  which  society  will  have  set  more  and  more 
clearly  before  it  in  the  stage  of  development  upon 
which  we  are  entering. 

How  far  we  are  at  present  from  the  realisation  of 
this  ideal  of  equality  of  opportunity,  we  shall  prob- 
ably perceive  more  clearly  as  the  development  con- 
tinues. Future  generations  may  regard  with  some 
degree  of  surprise,  and  may  even  smile  at  our  con- 
ceptions of  present-day  society  as  a  condition  in 
which  we  secure  the  full  benefits  of  free  competi- 
tion ;  in  which  we  get  the  right  men  into  the  right 
places  and  give  them  sufficient  inducements  to  exert 
themselves  ;  and  in  which  we  have  obtained  for  all 
members  of  the  community  the  necessary  opportu- 
nity for  the  full  exercise  of  their  faculties.  It  re- 
quires but  little  reflection  to  see  how  wide  of  the 
mark  such  a  conception  really  is.  A  large  propor- 
tion of  the  population  in  the  prevailing  state  of 
society  take  part  in  the  rivalry  of  life  only  under  condi- 
tions which  absolutely  preclude  them,  whatever  their 
natural  merit  or  ability,  from  any  real  chance  therein. 
They  come  into  the  world  to  find  the  best  positions 
not  only  already  filled  but  practically  occupied  in  per- 


250  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

petuity.  For,  under  the  great  body  of  rights  which 
wealth  has  inherited  from  feudalism,  we  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  allow  the  wealthy  classes  to  retain  the 
control  of  these  positions  for  generation  after  gener- 
ation, to  the  permanent  exclusion  of  the  rest  of  the 
people.  Even  from  that  large  and  growing  class  of 
positions  for  which  high  acquirements  or  superior 
education  is  the  only  qualification,  and  of  which  we, 
consequently  (with  strange  inaccuracy),  speak  as  if 
they  were  open  to  all  comers,  it  may  be  perceived 
that  the  larger  proportion  of  the  people  are  ex- 
cluded —  almost  as  rigorously  and  as  absolutely  as  in 
any  past  condition  of  society  —  by  the  simple  fact 
that  the  ability  to  acquire  such  education  or  qualifica- 
tion is  at  present  the  exclusive  privilege  of  wealth. 

Before  the  rivalry  of  life  can  be  raised  to  that 
state  of  efficiency  as  an  instrument  of  progress  to- 
wards which  it  appears  to  be  the  inherent  tendency 
of  our  civilisation  to  continue  to  carry  it,  society 
will  still  have  to  undergo  a  transformation  almost  as 
marked  as  any  through  which  it  has  passed  in  pre- 
vious stages.  We  have  evidence  of  the  beginning 
of  this  transformation  in  that  trend  of  present-day 
legislation  which  appears  so  puzzling  to  many  of  the 
old  progressive  school,  who  have  not  realised  the 
nature  of  the  process  of  development  in  progress. 
It  may  be  noticed  that  the  characteristic  feature  of 
this  legislation  is  the  increasing  tendency  to  raise 
the  position  of  the  lower  classes  at  the  expense  of  the 
wealthier  classes.  All  future  progressive  legislation 
must  apparently  have  this  tendency.  It  is  almost  a 
conditio  sine  qud  non  of  any  measure  that  carries  us 
a  step  forward  in  our  social  development. 


VIII 


MODERN   SOCIALISM  251 


This  is  the  real  meaning  of  a  large  class  of  pro- 
posed measures,  amongst  others  that  which  aims  at 
securing  an  eight  hours  day  for  adult  labour  enforced 
bylaw — measures,  in  the  present  transition  period, 
loosely  but  inaccurately  described  as  socialist,  and 
still  looked  at  askance  by  that  radical  party  in  Eng- 
land who  have  not  yet  clearly  perceived  that  the 
principles  of  their  faith  carry  them  any  further  than 
the  mere  political  enfranchisement  of  the  people. 
To  shorten  the  hours  of  labour  in  such  a  manner  is, 
at  the  present  time,  primarily  and  above  everything 
else  to  raise  the  conditions  of  life  of  the  workers  at 
the  expense  of  wealth  ;  and,  consequently,  ultimately 
to  place  the  workers  more  on  a  footing  of  equality  in 
the  rivalry  of  life  with  those  above  them.  It  is  this 
principle  also  that  is  behind  various  recent  measures 
in  England — limited  in  character  but  tending  to 
gradually  and  greatly  extend  in  scope  —  which  aim 
at  bettering  at  the  public  expense  the  condition  of 
the  lives  of  the  lower  classes  of  workers.  It  under- 
lies the  demand  for  graduated  taxation,  which  may 
be  expected  to  increase  in  strength  and  importunity ; 
and  demands  which  may  be  expected  to  take  practical 
shape  in  the  near  future,  for  the  revision  of  the 
hereditary  rights  of  wealth  and  the  conditions  under 
which  great  fortunes  are  transmitted  from  generation 
to  generation. 

The  same  principle  will  apparently  underlie  our 
education  legislation  in  future.  We  must  expect  to 
have  to  meet,  before  long,  demands  for  a  very  con- 
siderable extension  of  the  education  provided  by  the 
state  and  for  state  control  in  the  interests  of  the 
people  of  higher  as  well  as  of  elementary  education 


252  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

It  may  be  remarked  that  over  no  other  question 
is  the  struggle  between  the  old  spirit  and  the  new 
likely  to  be  more  severe  and  prolonged  than  over 
this  question  of  education.  It  is  in  reality  one  of  the 
last  principal  strongholds  of  the  retreating  party.  It 
is  not  yet  clearly  perceived  by  the  people  that  there  is 
not  any  more  natural  and  lasting  distinction  between 
the  educated  and  the  uneducated  classes  of  which  we 
hear  so  much  nowadays,  than  there  has  been  between 
the  other  classes  in  the  past.  Citizen  and  slave,  patri- 
cian and  plebeian,  feudal  lord  and  serf,  privileged 
classes  and  common  people,  leisured  classes  and  work- 
ing masses,  have  been  steps  in  a  process  of  develop- 
ment. In  the  "educated  classes"  and  the  "unedu- 
cated classes"  we  have  only  the  same  distinction 
under  a  subtler  and  even  less  defensible  form  ;  for 
the  right  to  education  in  its  highest  forms  now  re- 
mains largely  independent  of  any  other  qualification 
than  the  possession  of  mere  riches  to  secure  it ;  it 
constitutes,  in  fact,  one  of  the  most  exclusive,  and 
at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  influential,  of  the 
privileges  of  wealth. 

There  is  also  another  aspect  of  the  subject  which 
we  must  be  prepared  to  find  coming  into  increasing 
prominence.  It  is  a  fact,  the  full  significance  of  which 
has  not  yet  been  perceived  by  the  masses,  that  the 
condition  of  society  which  renders  the  right  of  entry 
to  the  institutions  for  higher  education  the  almost 
exclusive  privilege  of  wealth,  tends,  from  the  close 
connection  of  these  institutions  with  the  intellectual 
life  of  society,  to  render  them  (however  much  they 
may,  and  do,  from  the  highest  motives  endeavour  to 
resist  such  tendency)  influences  retarding  to  a  consid- 


viii  MODERN  SOCIALISM  253 

erable  degree  the  progress  of  the  development  which 
society  is  undergoing.  We  have,  consequently,  at  the 
present  day,  in  most  of  our  advanced  societies  the 
remarkable  phenomenon  of  the  intellectual  and  edu- 
cated classes,  at  first  almost  invariably  condemning 
and  resisting  the  successive  steps  in  our  social  devel- 
opment, uttering  the  most  gloomy  warnings  and  fore- 
bodings as  these  steps  have  been  taken  —  and  then 
tardily  justifying  them  when  they  have  become  mat- 
ters of  history  ;  that  is  to  say,  when  approval  or  disap- 
proval has  long  ceased  to  be  of  practical  importance. 
It  has  to  be  confessed  that  in  England  during  the 
nineteenth  century  the  educated  classes,  in  almost  all 
the  great  political  changes  that  have  been  effected, 
have  taken  the  side  of  the  party  afterwards  admitted 
to  have  been  in  the  wrong  —  they  have  almost  invari- 
ably opposed  at  the  time  the  measures  they  have  sub- 
sequently come  to  defend  and  justify.  This  is  to  be 
noticed  alike  of  measures  which  have  extended  edu- 
cation, which  have  emancipated  trade,  which  have 
extended  the  franchise.  The  educated  classes  have 
even,  it  must  be  confessed,  opposed  measures  which 
have  tended  to  secure  religious  freedom  and  to  abolish 
slavery.  The  motive  force  behind  the  long  list  of 
progressive  measures  carried  during  this  period  has 
in  scarcely  any  appreciable  measure  come  from  the 
educated  classes  ;  it  has  come  almost  exclusively  from 
the  middle  and  lower  classes,  who  have  in  turn  acted, 
not  under  the  stimulus  of  intellectual  motives,  but 
under  the  influence  of  their  altruistic  feelings. 

We  have  evidence  of  the  same  development  towards 
securing  equality  of  opportunity  in  that  tendency 
towards  the  extension  of  the  interference  of  the  state, 


254  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

which  appears  so  revolutionary  to  politicians  of  the  old 
laissez-faire  school.  The  progressive  interference  of 
the  state  (mostly  in  the  interests  of  the  weaker  classes, 
and  at  the  expense  of  wealth  and  privilege)  in  depart- 
ments now  looked  upon  as  quite  outside  the  sphere  of 
such  action,  is  apparently  inevitable.  We  do  not  yet 
fully  realise  that  with  the  completion  of  the  political 
enfranchisement  of  the  people,  the  state  itself  will 
have  undergone  a  profound  transformation.  Its  new 
relationship  to  the  people  must  be  quite  different 
from  any  that  has  ever  before  prevailed  in  history. 
The  spirit  which  produced  the  old  laissez-faire  doc- 
trine has,  in  all  probability,  still  a  great  part  to  play 
in  our  social  development ;  but  the  doctrine  itself  is,  in 
reality,  what  the  party  previously  identified  with  it 
in  England  has  for  some  time  instinctively  recognised 
it  to  be  —  the  doctrine  of  a  period  beyond  which  we 
have  progressed.  It  has  served  its  end  in  the  stage 
of  evolution  through  which  we  have  passed ;  for  the 
doctrine  of  the  non-interference  of  the  state  was 
the  natural  political  creed  of  a  people  who  had  won 
their  political  freedom  through  a  process  of  slow, 
orderly,  and  hard-fought  development,  and  to  whom 
the  state  throughout  this  period  represented  the 
power-holding  classes  whose  interests  were  not  coin- 
cident with  those  of  the  masses  of  the  people. 

But  the  doctrine  has  no  such  part  to  play  in  the 
future.  In  the  era  upon  which  we  are  entering,  the 
long  uphill  effort  to  secure  equality  of  opportunity,  as 
well  as  equality  of  political  rights,  will  of  necessity 
involve,  not  the  restriction  of  the  interference  of  the 
state,  but  the  progressive  extension  of  its  sphere  of 
action  to  almost  every  department  of  our  social  life. 


vni  MODERN   SOCIALISM  255 

The  movement  in  the  direction  of  the  regulation, 
control,  and  restriction  of  the  rights  of  wealth  and 
capital  must  be  expected  to  continue,  even  to  the 
extent  of  the  state  itself  assuming  these  rights  in 
cases  where  it  is  clearly  proved  that  their  retention  in 
private  hands  must  unduly  interfere  with  the  rights 
and  opportunities  of  the  body  of  the  people.  But  the 
continuity  of  principle  may  be  expected  to  remain 
evident  under  the  new  appearances.  Even  in  such 
cases  the  state  will,  in  reality,  assume  such  functions 
in  order  to  preserve  or  secure  free  competition  rather 
than  to  suspend  it.  Hence  the  general  tendency  must 
be  expected  to  be  towards  state  interference  and 
state  control  on  a  greatly  extended  scale  rather  than 
towards  state  management. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  inferred  from  this  that  the 
development  of  society  in  the  direction  indicated  will 
be  itself  a  movement  towards  socialism.  This  is  not 
so.  The  gulf  between  the  state  of  society  towards 
which  it  is  the  tendency  of  the  process  of  evolution 
now  in  progress  to  carry  us,  and  socialism,  is  wide 
and  deep.  The  avowed  aim  of  socialism  is  to  sus- 
pend that  personal  rivalry  and  competition  of  life 
which  not  only  is  now,  but  has  been  from  the  be- 
ginning of  life,  the  fundamental  impetus  behind  all 
progress.  The  inherent  tendency  of  the  process  of 
social  development  now  taking  place  amongst  us  is 
(as  it  has  been  from  the  beginning  of  our  civilisation) 
to  raise  this  rivalry  to  the  very  highest  degree  of 
efficiency  as  a  condition  of  progress,  by  bringing  all 
the  people  into  it  on  a  footing  of  equality,  and  by 
allowing  the  freest  possible  play  of  forces  within  the 
community*  and  the  widest  possible  opportunities  for 


256  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  development  of  every  individual's  faculties  and 
personality.  This  is  the  meaning  of  that  evolutional 
process  which  has  been  slowly  proceeding  through  the 
history  of  the  Western  peoples. 

But  in  any  consideration  of  the  future  tendency 
of  our  social  progress,  the  overshadowing  importance 
of  that  ethical  development  which  has  supplied  the 
motive  power  behind  the  procession  of  events  we  call 
progress,  must  always  be  kept  in  mind.  In  the 
process  of  evolution  through  which  we  have  passed, 
the  main  function  of  that  ethical  movement  on  which 
our  civilisation  is  founded  has  been  in  the  first  place 
to  provide  the  sanctions  necessary  to  secure  the  con- 
tinued subordination  of  the  interests  of  the  self-asser- 
tive individual  to  the  larger  interests  of  society.  In 
the  second  place  it  has  been  to  generate  that  great 
fund  of  altruistic  feeling  which,  gradually  saturating 
our  entire  social  life,  has  slowly  undermined  the  posi- 
tion of  the  power-holding  classes,  and  so  rendered 
possible  the  movement  which  is  tending  to  ultimately 
bring  all  the  people  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  condi- 
tions of  equality. 

The  future  progress  of  our  social  development  con- 
tinues to  be  indissolubly  bound  up  with  this  move- 
ment. When  the  fundamental  conditions  of  the 
problem  which  underlies  human  evolution  are  once 
clearly  understood,  it  must  be  perceived  that  it  is  in 
the  nature  of  things  impossible  for  rationalism  by 
itself  to  provide  such  sanctions  or  to  generate,  or 
even  to  keep  up,  this  fund  of  altruistic  feeling.  The 
process  which  is  proceeding  in  human  society  is 
always  progressively  developing  two  inherently  an- 
tagonistic tendencies ;  namely,  the  tendency  requiring 


Viii  MODERN   SOCIALISM  257 

the  increasing  subordination  of  the  individual  to 
society,  and  the  rationalistic  tendency  leading  the  in- 
dividual at  the  same  time  to  question,  with  increasing 
insistence,  the  authority  of  the  claims  requiring  him  tc 
submit  to  a  process  of  social  order  in  which  he  has 
absolutely  no  interest,  and  which  is  operating  largely 
in  the  interests  of  unborn  generations.  In  a  healthy 
and  progressive  society,  the  fundamental  principle 
of  its  existence  is,  that  the  second  tendency  must  be 
continually  subordinated  to  the  first. 

But,  as  has  been  throughout  insisted,  the  intellect 
has  no  power  to  effect  this  subordination.  With  the 
decay  of  the  ethical  influences  in  question,  we  may 
imagine  the  cynical  indifference,  nay,  the  cultivated 
intellectual  pride,  with  which  a  vigorous  character 
would  regard  its  emancipation  from  what  it  must,  in 
such  circumstances,  regard  as  a  mere  vulgar  thraldom. 
If  our  conscious  relationship  to  the  universe  is  meas- 
ured by  the  brief  span  of  individual  existence,  then 
the  intellect  can  know  of  only  one  duty  in  the  individ- 
ual, namely,  his  duty  to  himself  to  make  the  most 
of  the  few  precious  years  of  consciousness  he  can 
ever  know.  Every  other  consideration  must  appear 
dwarfed  and  ridiculous  in  comparison.  Every  pain 
avoided,  every  pleasure  gained  in  these  few  years,  is 
a  consideration,  beside  which  the  intellect  must  count 
any  aspiration  to  further  a  process  of  cosmic  evolu- 
tion in  which  the  individual  has  no  interest  as  mere 
dust  in  the  balance.  We  must  expect  wealth  and 
power,  in  such  circumstances,  to  be  grasped  at  with 
a  fierce  earnestness,  not  for  what  are  called  sordid 
motives,  but  for  intellectual  motives  over  and  above 
all  others ;  that  is  to  say,  for   the  command    of  the 


258  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

pleasures  and  gratifications  which  they  alone  can 
secure.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  univer- 
sal experience  of  mankind  has  been,  and  is  still,  that 
wealth  and  power  divorced  from  the  control  of  ethical 
influences  of  the  kind  in  question  have  not  sought  to 
find  satisfaction  in  what  are  called  the  higher  altruistic 
pleasures,  but  that  they  have  rather,  as  evolutionary 
science  would  have  taught  us,  sought  the  satisfaction 
of  those  instincts  which  have  their  roots  deepest  in 
our  natures.  Voluptuousness  and  epicureanism  in  all 
their  most  refined  forms  have  everywhere  been  and 
everywhere  continue  to  be,  the  accompaniments  of 
irresponsible  wealth  and  power,  the  corresponding 
mental  habit  being  one  of  cultured  contempt  for  the 
excluded  and  envious  masses. 

Nor,  as  already  pointed  out,  must  any  weight  be 
attached  to  the  argument  that  would  ask  us  to  take 
note  of  the  many  exceptions  to  such  a  tendency  to  be 
found  in  present  society,  in  individuals  of  the  highest 
motives  and  purest  lives,  who  are  not  in  any  way 
under  the  influence  of  the  religious  movement  upon 
which  our  civilisation  is  founded.  Once  we  have 
grasped  the  conception  of  our  civilisation  as  a  de- 
veloping organic  growth,  with  a  life-history  which 
must  be  studied  as  a  whole,  we  perceive  how  irra- 
tional it  is  to  regard  any  of  the  units  as  independent 
of  the  influence  of  a  process  which  has  operated  upon 
society  for  so  many  centuries.  As  well  might  we 
argue  that  because  the  fruit  survives  for  a  time  when 
removed  from  the  tree,  and  even  mellows  and  ripens, 
that  it  was,  therefore,  independent  of  the  tree. 

In  this  connection  it  should  be  remarked  that  the 
relationship  between  true  socialism  and  rationalism, 


vin  MODERN   SOCIALISM  259 

casually  noticed  by  many  observers,  is  not  accidental 
as  it  is  often  stated  to  be.  It  has  its  foundation 
deep-seated  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  The  con- 
flict between  the  forces  shaping  the  course  of  the 
development  we  are  at  present  undergoing,  and  the 
materialistic  socialism  of  Marx,  is  but  the  present-day 
expression  of  that  conflict  in  which  we  have  seen 
man  engaged  against  his  own  reason  throughout  the 
whole  course  of  his  social  development.  Socialism 
in  reality  aims  at  exploiting  in  the  interests  of  the 
existing  generation  of  individuals  that  humanitarian 
movement  which  is  providing  a  developmental  force 
operating  largely  in  the  interests  of  future  genera- 
tions. It  would,  in  fact,  exploit  this  movement  while 
it  cut  off  the  springs  of  it.  True  socialism  of  the 
German  type  must  be  recognised  to  be  ultimately 
as  individualistic  and  as  anti-social  as  individualism 
in  its  advanced  forms.  Scientifically,  they  are  both 
to  be  considered  as  the  extreme  logical  expression 
of  rationalistic  protest  by  the  individual  against  the 
subordination  of  his  interests  to  the  process  of  pro- 
gressive development  society  is  undergoing  from  gen- 
eration to  generation.  But  though  we  have  thus 
to  identify  socialism  with  political  materialism,  no 
greater  mistake  can  be  made  than  to  suppose  that 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  materialism  in  our  Western 
civilisation  would  imply  the  realisation  of  the  ideals 
of  socialism.  The  state  to  which  we  should  prob- 
ably attain  long  before  reaching  this  stage  would  be 
one  in  which  the  power-holding  classes,  recognising 
the  position,  would  with  cynical  frankness  proceed  to 
utilise  the  inherent  strength  of  their  own  position. 
Instead  of  slowly  yielding  their  position  as  they  are 


260  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap,  vm 

now  doing,  under  the  softening  influence  upon  gen- 
eral character  of  an  ethical  movement  —  which  by- 
undermining  their  faith  in  their  own  cause  has  de- 
prived them  of  the  power  of  making  effective  resist- 
ance —  they  might  be  expected  to  become  once  more 
aggressive  in  the  open  profession  of  class  selfishness 
and  contempt  for  the  people.  History  presents  a 
melancholy  record  of  the  helplessness  of  the  latter 
when  society  has  reached  this  stage.  The  deliberate 
effectiveness  with  which  the  power-holding  classes 
in  ancient  Rome  dealt  with  the  rights  of  the  people 
in  such  circumstances  in  the  long  downward  stage 
under  the  Empire  is  instructive,  and  bears  its  moral 
on  the  surface.  In  such  a  state  of  society  the  classes 
who  have  obtained  wealth  and  power,  and  all  other 
classes  in  turn,  instead  of  acting,  as  they  now  do, 
under  the  influence  of  an  evolutionary  force  operat- 
ing largely  in  the  future  interests  of  society,  come 
to  hold  it  as  a  duty  to  themselves  to  serve  their  own 
present  interests  by  such  direct  means  as  may  be 
available.  In  vague  popular  phraseology,  society  in 
this  stage  is  said  to  be  irremediably  corrupt :  strictly 
speaking  the  social  organism  has  exhausted  its  physi- 
ological capital,  and  has,  therefore,  entered  on  the 
downward  stage  towards  disintegration. 


CHAPTER   IX 

HUMAN   EVOLUTION  IS  NOT  PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL 

The  biologist  who  has  attempted  to  carry  the 
methods  of  his  science  thus  far  into  the  considera- 
tion of  the  phenomena  presented  in  human  society, 
now  finds  himself  approaching  a  conclusion  of  a 
remarkable  kind.  If  the  inferences  it  has  been  the 
object  of  the  preceding  chapters  to  establish  are  jus- 
tified, it  must  be  evident  that  they  have  a  very  wide 
significance  of  a  kind  not  yet  considered. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  the  reader,  as  he  has 
advanced  through  the  last  three  chapters,  may  have 
felt  that  one  idea  has  assumed  increasing  prominence 
in  his  mind.  Admitting,  he  may  say,  that  our  civili- 
sation is  to  be  viewed  as  a  single  organic  growth, 
the  significance  whereof  consists  in  the  fact  that  the 
developmental  process  proceeding  therein  tends  to 
raise  the  rivalry  of  life  to  the  highest  degree  of  effi- 
ciency by  bringing  all  the  people  into  it  on  a  footing 
of  equality ;  that  the  motive  force  which  has  been 
behind  this  development  has  its  seat  in  that  fund 
of  altruistic  feeling  with  which  our  civilisation  has 
become  equipped ;  and  that  this  fund  of  altruistic 
feeling  has  been  the  characteristic  product  of  the 
religious  system  associated  with  our  civilisation  — 
whither  does  this  lead  us  ?  What  guarantee  have 
we  that  the  development  which  has  been  proceeding 

261 


262  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

is  to  continue  ?  Do  not  the  signs  of  the  times  indi- 
cate a  decline  in  the  strength  and  vitality  of  those 
feelings  and  ideas  upon  which  our  religious  systems 
have  been  founded  ? 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  rationalistic  school 
which  has  been  in  the  ascendant  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  which  has  raised 
such  unstinted  paeans  in  honour  of  the  intellect,  re- 
garding it  as  the  triumphant  factor  of  progress  in 
the  splendid  ages  to  come,  is  destined  to  undergo 
disillusionment  in  many  respects.  Sooner  or  later 
it  must  become  clear  to  all  the  more  far-seeing 
thinkers  amongst  this  party  that,  in  so  far  as  the 
Western  peoples  have  to  depend  solely  on  their  in- 
tellectual capacity,  and  the  results  of  their  intel- 
lectual development,  to  maintain  the  supremacy  they 
have  obtained  over  what  are  called  the  lower  races, 
they  are  leaning  on  a  false  hope.  As  time  goes  on, 
it  must  be  realised  that  the  promise  of  the  intellect 
in  this  respect  is  a  delusive  one.  All  the  conquests 
of  mind,  all  the  arts  and  inventions  of  life,  will  be 
open  to  the  rest  of  the  world  as  well  as  to  these 
peoples,  and  not  only  may  be  equally  shared  in  by 
others,  but  may  be  utilised  with  effect  against  the 
Western  races  themselves  in  the  competition  of  life. 
As  the  process  of  development  proceeds  it  must  be- 
come increasingly  evident  that  the  advanced  races 
will  have  no  power,  in  virtue  of  their  intellectual 
characteristics  alone,  to  continue  to  retain  the  po- 
sition of  ascendency  they  have  hitherto  enjoyed 
throughout  the  world,  and  that  if  they  have  no  other 
secret  of  rule  than  this,  the  sceptre  is  destined  event- 
ually to  pass  from  them. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      263 

But  is  this,  then,  the  message  of  evolutionary  sci- 
ence ?  Has  the  development  which  has  been  in 
progress  throughout  the  centuries  no  other  meaning 
than  that  the  social  progress  of  the  Western  peoples 
has  been,  after  all,  but  a  passing  sport  of  life  ?  Do 
we  only  see  therein  humanity  condemned  to  an  aim- 
less Sisyphean  labour,  breasting  the  long  slope  up- 
wards to  find  when  the  top  has  been  reached  that 
our  civilisation  must  slide  backwards  again  through 
a  period  of  squalid  ruin  and  decay,  leaving  nothing 
gained  or  won  for  the  race  in  the  process  of  the 
strenuous  centuries  through  which  we  have  passed  ? 

The  answer  to  these  questions,  which  it  appears 
that  evolutionary  science  must  give  to  the  biologist 
who  has  endeavoured  without  prepossession  or  preju- 
dice to  carry  the  methods  of  his  science  thus  far  into 
the  midst  of  the  phenomena  of  human  existence,  is 
very  remarkable.  It  would  appear  that  the  conclu- 
sion that  Darwinian  science  must  eventually  establish 
is  that  — 

The  evolution  which  is  slowly  proceeding  in  human 
society  is  not  primarily  intellectual  but  religious  in 
character. 

Since  man  became  a  social  creature  the  develop- 
ment of  his  intellectual  character  has  become  subordi- 
nate to  the  development  of  his  religious  character. 
It  would  appear  that  the  process  at  work  in  society 
is  evolving  religious  character  as  a  first  product,  and 
intellectual  capacity  only  so  far  as  it  can  be  associated 
with  this  quality.  In  other  words,  the  most  distinc- 
tive feature  of  human  evolution  as  a  whole  is,  that 
through  the  operation  of  the  law  of  natural  selection 
the  race  must  grow  ever  more  and  more  religious. 


264  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

Our  progress,  it  must  be  remembered,  is,  over  and 
above  everything  else,  social  progress.  It  is  always 
tending  to  secure,  in  an  increasing  degree,  the  subor- 
dination of  the  present  interests  of  the  self-assertive 
individual  to  the  future  interests  of  society,  his  ex- 
panding intellect  notwithstanding.  The  manner  in 
which  apparently  this  result  is  being  attained  in 
human  society  is  by  the  slow  evolution  in  the  race  of 
that  type  of  individual  character  through  which  this 
subordination  can  be  most  effectively  secured.  This 
type  appears  to  be  that  which  would  be  described  in 
popular  language  as  the  religious  character.  The 
winning  races  have  been  those  in  which,  other  things 
being  equal,  this  character  has  been  most  fully  devel- 
oped. Amongst  these  again  the  races  that  have 
acquired  an  ever-increasing  ascendency  have  been 
those  which  have  possessed  the  best  ethical  systems  ; 
that  is  to  say,  ethical  systems  which,  having  secured 
this  subordination  of  the  present  interests  of  the 
individual  to  the  larger  interests  of  an  indefinitely 
longer-lived  social  organism,  have  then  allowed  the 
fullest  possible  development  of  the  powers  and  facul- 
ties of  all  the  individuals  concerned.  We  appear 
to  have,  throughout  human  history,  two  well-marked 
developments,  proceeding  simultaneously  —  a  devel- 
opment of  religious  character  in  the  individual  on  the 
one  hand,  and  an  evolution  in  the  character  of  relig- 
ious beliefs  on  the  other. 

It  would  appear  also  that  we  must  regard  many  of 
the  estimates  which  have  been  made  and  the  opinions 
which  have  been  formed  in  the  past  as  to  the  decay 
of  religious  influences  and  tendencies  as  altogether 
untrustworthy.      The  subject    must   be   approached 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      265 

from  a  much  higher  and  wider  standpoint  than  any 
hitherto  attempted.  When  the  nature  of  the  process 
of  evolution  we  are  undergoing  is  understood,  it  must 
be  recognised  that  we  have  been  estimating  the  vital- 
ity of  religious  influences  on  a  wrong  principle.  They 
do  not  derive  their  strength  from  the  support  given 
to  them  by  the  intellect.  Any  form  of  belief  which 
could  claim  to  influence  conduct  solely  because  of  its 
sanction  from  individual  reason  would,  in  fact,  from 
the  nature  of  things,  be  incapable  of  exercising  the 
functions  of  a  religion  in  the  evolution  of  society. 
The  two  forces  are  inherently  antagonistic.  The 
intellect  has,  accordingly,  always  mistaken  the  nature 
of  religious  forces,  and  regarded  as  beneath  notice 
movements  which  have  had  within  them  the  power 
to  control  the  course  of  human  development  for 
hundreds  and  even  thousands  of  years.  Again  the 
plasticity  of  religious  systems  has  not  been  realised. 
These  systems  are  themselves  —  under  the  outward 
appearances  of  rigidity,  and  while  always  preserving 
their  essential  characteristics  —  undergoing  profound 
modifications.  They  are  in  a  continuous  state  of 
evolution.  Lastly,  it  has  not  been  understood  or 
taken  into  account  that  the  great  deep-seated  evolu- 
tionary forces  at  work  in  society  are  not  operating 
against  religious  influences  and  in  favour  of  the  un- 
controlled sway  of  the  intellect.  On  the  contrary,  it 
seems  to  be  clear  that  these  influences  have  been 
always  and  everywhere  triumphant  in  the  past,  and 
that  it  is  a  first  principle  of  our  social  development 
that  they  must  continue  to  be  in  the  ascendant  to  the 
end,  whatever  the  future  may  have  in  store  for  us. 
In  short,  the  law  of  natural  selection  would  appear 


266  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

to  be  operating  in  human  society  under  conditions, 
a  full  knowledge  of  which  is  likely  to  necessitate  a 
very  considerable  readjustment  of  the  standpoint  from 
which  the  subject  of  our  progress  has  been  hitherto 
regarded.  Let  us  now  see  whether  history  and  an- 
thropology furnish  any  evidence  in  support  of  this 
inference  that  the  progress  the  race  has  been  making 
has  not  been  primarily  progress  in  intellectual  de- 
velopment. For  if  the  inference  be  correct  it  is  evi- 
dent (i)  that  our  intellectual  progress  must  be  far 
smaller,  less  significant,  and  more  irregular  than  has 
been  generally  supposed ;  (2)  that  the  wide  interval 
between  the  peoples  who  have  attained  the  highest 
social  development  and  the  lowest  races,  is  not  mainly 
the  result  of  a  difference  in  intellectual,  but  of  a  dif- 
ference in  ethical  development ;  (3)  that  there  is  not 
that  direct  connection  between  high  social  develop- 
ment and  high  intellectual  development  which  has 
been  hitherto  almost  universally  assumed  to  exist. 

Now  any  one  who  has  been  closely  interested  in 
that  department  of  higher  thought  which  for  the  past 
fifty  years  has  been  concerned  with  the  subject  of 
human  progress  as  a  whole,  must  have  become  con- 
scious at  times  of  a  peculiar  undercurrent  of  opinion 
which  seems  to  set  in  an  opposite  direction  to  the 
ordinary  and  larger  current  of  thought  on  this  subject 
of  progress.  Nothing  can  be  less  doubtful,  in  the 
first  place,  than  the  tendency  of  general  opinion  on 
the  subject.  By  the  world  at  large,  and  by  most  of 
those  to  whom  it  looks  for  information  and  guidance, 
our  progress  has  long  been  accepted  as  mainly  a  mat- 
ter of  intellectual  development.  The  almost  univer- 
sal tendency  has  been  to  regard  the  intellectual  factor 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      267 

as  the  ruling  and  dominant  one  in  the  advance  we 
have  made.  The  facts  upon  which  this  general  opinion 
is  founded  are,  indeed,  regarded  as  being  so  prom- 
inent, and  their  import  as  being  so  clear,  that  the 
conclusion  is  usually  accepted  as  beyond  dispute,  so 
much  so  that  it  is  scarcely  ever  felt  necessary  nowa- 
days to  subject  it  to  any  general  and  detailed  scrutiny. 

The  principal  links  in  the  chain  of  evidence  seem 
to  stand  out  clearly,  and  to  have  all  the  appearance 
of  strength  and  stability.  One  of  the  unquestioned 
facts  of  biology  is  the  progressive  increase  in  brain 
development  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  life.  The  in- 
crease is  steady  and  continuous,  and  the  rule  is  almost 
without  exception.  This,  too,  is  apparently  only  what 
we  should  have  to  expect  if  we  accept  the  Darwin- 
ian hypothesis  ;  for  of  all  the  successful  variations 
which  it  is  the  part  of  natural  selection  to  accumulate, 
none  can  have  been  more  profitable  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  than  those  which  increased  tlje  intelli- 
gence of  the  forms  of  life  engaged  therein.  The 
increase  of  brain  development,  therefore,  continues 
throughout  life  until  it  finally  culminates  in  man, 
whom  we  find  standing  in  unquestioned  supremacy 
at  the  head  of  creation,  and  holding  his  high  position 
in  virtue  of  the  exceptional  intellectual  development 
to  which  he  has  attained. 

When  the  anthropologist,  restricting  himself  to 
human  progress,  now  takes  up  the  tale,  it  may  be  ob- 
served that  he  proceeds,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course, 
to  marshal  his  facts  so  as  to  bring  out  the  same  de- 
velopmental law.  Ethnological  treatises  are  filled 
with  facts  intended  to  exemplify  the  great  mental 
gulf  which  exists  between  the  members  of  the  higher 


268  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

and  those  of  the  lower  races  of  the  human  family,  and 
with  others  intended  to  establish  the  close  connection 
which  is  assumed  to  exist  between  high  social  devel- 
opment and  high  intellectual  development.  Popular 
imagination  has,  in  like  manner,  its  own  evidences  in 
view  ;  for  what  more  conclusive  argument,  it  is  asked, 
can  we  have  as  to  the  direct  connection  between 
mental  and  social  development  than  the  visible  differ- 
ence in  the  world  to-day  between  the  position  of  the 
lower  and  the  higher  races,  and  the  characteristics 
that  accompany  this  difference  ?  On  the  one  side  we 
have  to  witness  the  higher  races  with  their  complex 
civilisations,  high  state  of  culture,  and  advanced 
knowledge  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  all  that  this 
implies  ;  and  on  the  other  side  we  have  to  note  the 
inferior  races  existing  almost  in  a  state  of  nature, 
possessing  and  desiring  only  the  bare  necessities  of 
an  animal  existence,  unacquainted  with  the  higher 
arts  an4  sciences,  often  without  knowledge  of  metals 
or  agriculture,  and  not  infrequently  with  no  words  in 
their  language  to  express  numbers  higher  in  the  scale 
than  five. 

All  this  appears,  at  first  sight,  striking  and  impres- 
sive. Nevertheless,  strange  to  say,  a  tendency  is 
undoubtedly  to  be  observed  in  certain  quarters  to 
question  whether  the  assumption  which  underlies  all 
arguments  of  this  kind  has  ever  been  proved,  and 
whether  it  is  even  capable  of  proof.  If  the  attention 
of  the  observer  is  arrested,  and  if  he  proceeds  to  ana- 
lyse for  himself  the  facts  upon  which  the  prevailing 
view  as  to  the  dominance  of  the  intellectual  factor 
in  human  progress  is  founded,  he  soon  becomes  con- 
scious of  such  peculiar  discrepancies  and  such  extraor- 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      269 

dinary  and  unexplained  contradictions  that  he  finds 
himself  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  question 
must  be  much  more  difficult  and  complex  than  this 
prevailing  view  would  have  led  him  to  suppose. 

A  class  of  facts  which,  not  improbably,  will  attract 
attention  at  the  outset  is  that  respecting  the  ancient 
civilisations.  Since  the  revival  of  learning  in  Europe, 
there  may  be  traced  very  clearly  a  tendency  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  have  devoted  attention  to  the 
subject  to  compare  the  average  intellectual  develop- 
ment in  the  old  civilisations,  and  more  particularly  in 
that  of  the  Greeks,  with  the  average  mental  develop- 
ment under  our  own  civilisation,  and  always  to  the 
disparagement  of  the  latter.  This  tendency  is  more 
remarkable  in  recent  times,  as  it  is  quite  unaffected 
by  the  prevailing  disposition  (for  which  there  is  prob- 
ably every  justification)  to  regard  our  own  civilisation 
as  being,  nevertheless,  the  very  highest,  both  in  kind 
and  degree,  the  human  race  has  so  far  reached. 

That  the  intellectual  development  reached  by  the 
ancients  should  have  excited  attention  in  the  period 
of  the  Renaissance  was  only  natural.  The  civilisa- 
tions of  the  Greek  and  Roman  peoples  represented, 
at  the  time  of  the  reawakening  of  the  European  mind, 
the  highest  efforts  of  the  race  in  almost  every  depart- 
ment of  intellectual  activity,  and  it  was  inevitable 
that  the  mental  qualities  of  these  peoples,  and  of  the 
Greeks  in  particular,  should  excite  the  wonder  and 
admiration  of  men  after  the  long  period  of  intellectual 
stagnation  through  which  the  world  had  passed.  But 
the  point  to  which  attention  is  more  particularly  di- 
rected is  that,  although  a  new  age  has  since  arisen, 
although    our  Western  civilisation  has  developed  a 


270  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

strength,  a  magnificence,  and  an  undoubted  promise 
which  overshadows  the  fame  and  the  achievements  of 
these  former  civilisations,  the  fuller  knowledge  and 
the  more  accurate  methods  of  research  and  examina- 
tion of  our  own  time  have  only  tended  to  confirm  the 
view,  that  in  average  mental  development  we  are  not 
the  superiors  but  the  inferiors  of  these  ancient  peoples 
who  have  so  completely  dropped  out  of  the  human 
struggle  for  existence.  Judged  by  the  standard  of 
intellectual  development  alone,  we  of  the  modern 
European  races  who  seem  to  have  been  so  unmis- 
takably marked  out  by  the  operation  of  the  law  of 
natural  selection  to  play  a  commanding  part  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  have,  in  fact,  no  claim  whatever 
to  consider  ourselves  as  in  advance  of  the  ancient 
Greeks,  all  the  extraordinary  progress  and  promise  of 
the  modern  world  notwithstanding. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  the  opening  up  of 
many  widely-different  branches  of  research  has  brought 
a  crowd  of  workers  in  various  departments  into  close 
contact  with  the  intellectual  life  of  the  Greeks.  The 
unanimity  of  testimony  which  comes  from  these  rep- 
resentatives of  different  spheres  of  thought  as  to 
the  high  average  standard  of  intellectual  development 
reached  by  this  remarkable  people,  is  very  striking. 
It  is  not  only  that  the  mental  calibre  of  isolated  minds 
like  Socrates,  Aristotle,  Plato,  or  Phidias,  appears  so 
great  when  carefully  measured,  and  the  state  of  knowl- 
edge and  the  circumstances  of  the  time  taken  into 
account.  It  is  rather  that  the  mental  average  of  the 
whole  of  the  people  should  have  been  so  unmistakably 
high.  In  both  respects  the  Greeks  seem  to  have 
surpassed  us. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      271 

Mr.  Lecky  regards  it  as  one  of  the  anomalies  of 
history  which  we  can  only  imperfectly  explain,  "  that 
within  the  narrow  limits  and  scanty  population  of  the 
Greek  States  should  have  arisen  men  who,  in  almost 
every  conceivable  form  of  genius,  in  philosophy,  in 
epic,  dramatic,  and  lyric  poetry,  in  written  and  spoken 
eloquence,  in  statesmanship,  in  sculpture,  in  painting, 
and  probably  also  in  music,  should  have  attained  almost 
or  altogether  the  highest  limits  of  human  perfection."1 
Similar  views  expressed  forcibly,  though  withal  tem- 
perately, and  in  well-weighed  words,  may  be  found 
scattered  up  and  down  throughout  European  litera- 
ture at  the  present  time.  Yet  it  is  not  from  what 
may  be  called  the  literary  and  philosophical  section 
of  the  workers  who  have  attempted  to  estimate  the 
capacity  of  the  Greek  intellect  that  the  most  striking 
testimony  comes.  Those  who  may  fairly  claim  to 
speak  with  authority  in  the  name  of  science,  do  so 
with  even  more  emphasis  and  directness.  Mr.  Galton, 
whose  anthropological  investigations,  and  statistical 
and  other  measurements  of  human  faculties,  physical 
and  mental,  under  a  wide  range  of  circumstances,  give 
him  a  peculiar  right  to  be  heard,  is  of  opinion  that 
"the  ablest  race  of  whom  history  bears  record  is 
unquestionably  the  ancient  Greeks,  partly  because 
their  masterpieces  in  the  principal  departments  of 
intellectual  activity  are  still  unsurpassed,  and  partly 
because  the  population  which  gave  birth  to  the  cre- 
ators of  those  masterpieces  was  very  small."2  He 
asserts  that  we  have  no  men  to  put  by  the  side  of 
Socrates  and  Phidias,  and  that  "the  millions  of  all 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  p.  418. 

2  Hereditary  Genius,  p.  329. 


272  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

Europe,  breeding  as  they  have  done  for  the  subse- 
quent two  thousand  years,  have  never  produced  their 
equals."  He  also  considers  that  our  average  intellec- 
tual development  is  far  below  that  of  the  Greeks  as  a 
people.  Summarising  a  very  striking  argument,  he 
continues  — "  It  follows  from  all  this,  that  the  average 
ability  of  the  Athenian  race  is,  on  the  lowest  possible 
estimate,  very  nearly  two  grades  higher  than  our  own ; 
that  is,  about  as  much  as  our  race  is  above  that  of  the 
African  negro.  This  estimate,  which  may  seem  pro- 
digious to  some,  is  confirmed  by  the  quick  intelligence 
and  high  culture  of  the  Athenian  commonalty,  before 
whom  literary  works  were  recited,  and  works  of 
art  exhibited,  of  a  far  more  severe  character  than 
could  possibly  be  appreciated  by  the  average  of 
our  race,  the  calibre  of  whose  intellect  is  easily 
gauged  by  a  glance  at  the  contents  of  a  railway 
bookstall."1 

This  is  a  very  remarkable  expression  of  opinion, 
allowing  for  all  possible  considerations  which  may  be 
taken  to  detract  from  its  significance.  If  the  aver- 
age mental  development  reached  by  the  Greeks  was 
so  superior  to  ours  as  this,  we  have  here  a  fact,  the 
import  of  which  in  human  evolution  has  not  yet  been 
clearly  perceived.  If  the  intellectual  ability  of  the 
people  who  developed  this  extinct  civilisation  is  to  be 
taken  as  being,  not  only  in  excess  of  that  of  those 
modern  European  races  whose  civilisation  is  winning 
such  an  ascendency  in  the  world  to-day,  but  as  being 
as  far  above  it  as  the  mental  ability  of  these  latter  is 
above  that  of  some  of  the  lowest  of  the  peoples  whom 
they  have  displaced  through  the  operation  of  natural 

1  Hereditary  Genius,  p.  331. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      273 

selection,  then  it  seems  extremely  difficult  to  recon- 
cile this  fact  with  an  unshaken  belief  in  any  theory 
according  to  which  intellectual  development  must 
be  taken  as  the  dominant  factor  in  human  evolution. 
We  may  be  prepared  to  accept  Sir  Henry  Maine's  view 
that  in  an  intellectual  sense  nothing  moves  in  this 
Western  world  that  is  not  Greek  in  its  origin  ;  but 
no  homage  of  this  kind  to  the  Greek  intellect,  how- 
ever well  it  may  be  deserved,  can  blind  our  eyes  to 
the  fact  that  the  Greek  peoples  themselves,  like  the 
ancient  Romans,  have  absolutely  disappeared  in  the 
human  struggle  for  existence.  Even  their  blood  can- 
not be  distinguished  in  the  populations  of  large  tracts 
of  Eastern  and  Southern  Europe,  and  Western  Asia, 
where  these  ruling  races  were  once  predominant  both 
in  numbers  and  influence.  Judged  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  evolutionist,  the  ancient  Greek  races 
were  as  far  below  the  European  peoples  of  to-day  in 
the  qualities  that  have  won  for  the  latter  the  ascen- 
dency they  have  obtained  in  the  greater  part  of  the 
world,  as  these  latter  are  held  to  be  below  the  Greeks 
in  intellectual  development.  The  human  race  has, 
beyond  possibility  of  doubt,  advanced  in  some  direc- 
tion in  the  interval.  But  if  we  are  to  accept  the 
opinions  of  high  authorities,  the  development  has  not 
apparently  been  an  intellectual  development. 

If  we  continue  our  examination,  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  the  theory  as  to  the  direct  connection  be- 
tween intellectual  development  and  social  progress  do 
not  tend  to  disappear,  but  rather  to  crowd  in  upon 
us.  Not  only  is  it  probable  that  the  average  intel- 
lectual development  of  the  races  which  are  winning 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  to-day  is  below  that  of 

T 


274  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

some  of  the  peoples  which  have  long  ago  disappeared 
from  the  rivalry  of  life,  but  there  seems  every  reason 
to  suppose  that  the  average  intellectual  development 
of  successive  generations  amongst  ourselves  does  not 
show  any  tendency  to  rise  above  that  of  the  genera- 
tions immediately  preceding  them. 

There  may  be  noticed  in  the  literature  of  the  time 
many  indications  that  a  conclusion  of  this  kind  is 
already  forcing  itself  on  the  minds  of  many  students 
of  social  phenomena  who  are  specialists  in  their  own 
departments.  A  proportion  of  these  expressions  of 
opinion  come,  doubtless,  from  those  who  by  training 
and  temperament  are  inclined  to  distrust  modern  pro- 
gressive tendencies  in  general ;  but  others  proceeding 
from  authorities  who  regard  our  development  as  tend- 
ing undoubtedly  upwards,  but  who  still  speak  with 
doubt  and  hesitation  of  our  intellectual  progress,  are 
more  significant.  Few  men,  for  instance,  have  had  a 
more  extensive  and  prolonged  personal  acquaintance 
with  the  English  people  and  with  English  public  and 
intellectual  life  generally  than  Mr.  Gladstone  ;  and 
from  the  position  he  has  occupied  as  leader  of  the 
progressive  party  for  a  period  of  exceptional  duration, 
few  would  probably  be  less  likely  to  speak  disparag- 
ingly of  the  amount  and  nature  of  the  progress  which 
we  have  made  and  are  still  making.  Yet  he  is  re- 
ported to  have  said  recently  :  "  I  sometimes  say  that 
I  do  not  see  that  progress  in  the  development  of  the 
brain  power  which  we  ought  to  expect.  .  .  .  Devel- 
opment, no  doubt,  is  a  slow  process,  but  I  do  not 
see  it  at  all.  I  do  not  think  we  are  stronger,  but 
weaker  than  men  of  the  Middle  Ages.  I  would  take 
it  as  low  down  as  the  men  of  the  sixteenth  century. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      275 

The  men  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  strong  men, 
stronger  in  brain  power  than  our  men."  1 

Opinions  of  this  kind  are  justified  by  our  social 
and  vital  statistics  to  a  greater  extent  than  might  be 
readily  expected.  The  inquirer  finds  it  increasingly 
difficult,  the  further  he  proceeds,  to  assent  to  the  view 
so  commonly  held  that  the  rivalry  of  life  prevailing 
amongst  the  advanced  European  peoples  has  tended 
in  the  past,  and  is  tending  now,  to  produce  an  in- 
crease of  that  kind  of  intellectual  development  which 
is  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation  by  in- 
heritance, and  accumulated  by  natural  selection.  The 
facts  seem  to  point  to  a  different  conclusion.  While 
it  appears  to  be  beyond  question  that  our  progress 
towards  a  state  of  free  rivalry  and  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity has  been  favourable  to  the  development  of 
certain  vigorous  and  virile  qualities  that  have  given 
the  leading  races  the  ascendency  they  have  come  to 
enjoy  in  the  world,  it  is  at  the  same  time  in  the 
highest  degree  doubtful  whether  it  has  been  favour- 
able to  an  increased  intellectual  development  of  the 
kind  in  question.  One  of  the  most  marked  and  char- 
acteristic features  of  the  evolutionary  process  which 
has  been  in  progress  in  our  Western  civilisation 
appears  to  be  its  tendency  to  restrain  intellectual 
development. 

To  understand  how  such  a  result  can  be  possible  in 
modern  society  it  is  desirable  to  carry  the  mind  back 
a  stage.  It  has  lately  become  well  known  that  the 
attempts  which  have  been  made  in  the  past  by  the 
nobles  and  power-holding  classes  in  almost  every 
country  to   perpetuate   the   stock  of   the  privileged 

1  Review  of  Reviews,  April  1892.     Interview  with  Mr.  W.  T.  Stead. 


276  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

classes  to  which  they  have  belonged  have  invariably 
failed.  The  most  favourable  conditions  for  rendering 
the  attempt  successful  have  in  many  cases  prevailed ; 
and  every  device  that  human  ingenuity  could  invent 
to  attain  the  end  in  view  has  been  tried  by  these 
classes  in  order  to  secure  success.  But  the  result 
has  always  been  the  same.  After  a  limited  number 
of  generations  the  stock  has  become  extinct,  and  the 
privileged  classes  have  been  able  to  maintain  them- 
selves only  by  the  continual  infusion  of  new  blood 
and  intermarriage  with  the  classes  below  them.  We 
had,  for  instance,  amongst  the  Romans,  in  the  Patri- 
cians and  the  Plebeians,  what  Gibbon  calls  "the 
proudest  and  most  perfect  separation  which  can  be 
found  in  any  age  or  country  between  the  nobles  and  the 
people."  Intermarriages  were  prohibited  by  the  laws 
of  the  XII.  Tables.  Wealth  and  honours,  the  offices  of 
the  state,  and  the  ceremonies  of  religion,  were  almost 
exclusively  possessed  by  the  Patricians;  and  the  most 
jealous  pride  of  birth  reinforced  the  barriers  which 
had  been  erected  in  law,  sentiment,  and  religion  with 
the  object  of  preserving  the  purity  of  their  blood. 
Yet  Gibbon  records  that  the  Patrician  families  "whose 
original  number  was  never  recruited  till  the  end  of  the 
Commonwealth,  either  failed  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  nature,  or  were  extinguished  in  so  many  foreign  or 
domestic  wars,  or,  through  a  want  of  merit  or  fortune, 
insensibly  mingled  with  the  mass  of  the  people.  Very 
few  remained  who  could  derive  their  pure  and  genuine 
origin  from  the  infancy  of  the  city  or  even  from  that 
of  the  Republic  when  Caesar  and  Augustus,  Claudius 
and  Vespasian,  created  from  the  body  of  the  senate  a 
competent  number  of  new  Patrician  families  in  the 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      277 

hope  of  perpetuating  an  order  which  was  still  consid- 
ered as  honourable  and  sacred." 1  But  these  new 
artificial  supplies  soon  went  the  way  of  the  others, 
until,  in  the  reign  of  Constantine,  we  find  it  recorded 
that  little  more  was  left  than  "  a  vague  and  imperfect 
tradition  that  the  Patricians  had  once  been  the  first 
of  the  Romans." 

The  existing  aristocratic  families  amongst  the  mod- 
ern European  peoples  are  continually  undergoing  the 
same  process  of  decay.  The  manner  in  which  the 
English  aristocracy  (which  has  been  to  a  large  extent 
recruited  from  those  who,  in  the  first  instance,  attained 
to  the  position  by  force  of  character  or  intellect)  is 
continually  dying  out,  has  become  a  commonplace  of 
knowledge  since  the  investigations  of  Galton,  Evelyn 
Shirley,  and  others  threw  light  on  the  subject.  Only 
five  out  of  over  five  hundred  of  the  oldest  aristocratic 
families  in  England,  at  the  present  time,  can  trace 
direct  descent  through  the  male  line  to  the  fifteenth 
century.  Despite  the  innumerable  safeguards  with 
which  they  have  been  able  to  surround  themselves, 
such  classes  seem  to  be  quite  unable  to  keep  up  the 
stock  for  more  than  a  limited  number  of  generations ; 
they  are  continually  dying  out  at  the  top  and  being 
recruited  from  below.  A  similar  state  of  things  has 
been  found  to  exist  in  France  by  M.  Lageneau  and 
others  who  have  investigated  the  records  of  the  noble 
families  of  that  country,  and  it  is  known  to  prevail 
also  in  nearly  all  countries  where  an  aristocratic  class 
exists. 

Now,  a  great  number  of  reasons  have  been  given 
from  time  to  time  to  account   for  this  tendency  of 

1  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  vol.  i.  chap.  xvii. 


278  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

aristocratic  families  to  die  out ;  and,  while  some  weight 
must  be  attached  to  most  of  them,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  true  cause  is  a  very  simple  one  with 
no  mystery  whatever  about  it.  One  of  the  deepest 
instincts  implanted  in  human  nature,  as  the  result  of 
the  long  rivalry  through  which  we  have  come,  is  the 
desire  always  to  go  forward.  Man  is  never  satisfied 
with  his  position.  Having  attained  a  competency,  he 
is  no  more  content  than  when  the  bare  necessities 
of  existence  were  hardly  secured  to  him.  Nor  is  he 
usually  more  content  with  luxury  than  with  compe- 
tency. He  must,  if  possible,  always  go  onwards;  he 
is  never  willing  to  go  backwards.  In  a  very  effective 
passage  Mr.  Henry  George  has  noted  how  characteristic 
this  feature  is  of  man  ;  and  it  becomes  progressively 
more  marked  as  we  ascend  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher  races.1     A  certain  restless  energy,  an  always 

1  Mr.  George  says  of  man,  u  He  is  the  only  animal  whose  desires  in- 
crease as  they  are  fed  ;  the  only  animal  that  is  never  satisfied.  The 
wants  of  every  other  living  thing  are  uniform  and  fixed.  The  ox  of 
to-day  aspires  to  no  more  than  did  the  ox  when  man  first  yoked  him. 
The  sea-gull  of  the  English  Channel  who  poises  himself  above  the  swift 
steamer,  wants  no  better  food  or  lodging  than  the  gulls  who  circled 
round  as  the  keels  of  Caesar's  galleys  first  grated  on  a  British  beach. 
Of  all  that  nature  offers  them,  be  it  ever  so  abundant,  all  living  things 
save  man  can  only  take,  and  only  care  for,  enough  to  supply  wants 
which  are  definite  and  fixed.  The  only  use  they  can  make  of  additional 
supplies  or  additional  opportunities  is  to  multiply.  But  not  so  with 
man.  No  sooner  are  his  animal  wants  satisfied,  than  new  wants  arise. 
Food  he  wants  first,  as  does  the  beast;  shelter  next,  as  does  the  beast; 
and  these  given,  his  reproductive  instincts  assert  their  sway,  as  do  those 
of  the  beast.  But  here  man  and  beast  part  company.  The  beast  never 
goes  further;  the  man  has  but  set  his  feet  on  the  first  step  of  an  infinite 
progression  —  a  progression  upon  which  the  beast  never  enters;  a  pro- 
gression away  from  and  above  the  beast.  The  demand  for  quantity 
once  satisfied,  he  seeks  quality.     The  very  desires  that  he  has  in  com- 


ix        EVOLUTION   NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      279 

unsatisfied  ambition  to  go  forward,  is  one  of  the  most 
pronounced  of  the  individual  and  racial  characteristics 
of  the  winning  sections  of  the  human  family. 

Now,  one  of  the  most  common  of  all  forms  in  which 
this  instinct  expresses  itself  is  the  unwillingness  of 
men,  in  a  state  of  civilisation  such  as  that  in  which 
we  are  living,  to  marry  and  bring  up  families  in  a 
state  of  life  lower  than  that  into  which  they  were 
themselves  born.  As  we  rise  beyond  the  middle 
classes  the  task  becomes,  however,  more  and  more 
difficult  the  higher  we  go,  until  amongst  the  highest 
aristocratic  families  it  has  long  ceased  to  be  possible 
to  any  extent.  While  we  have,  therefore,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  constant  tendency  of  aspiring  ability  to  rise 
into  the  highest  class,  we  have,  on  the  other  hand, 
within  the  class  itself,  the  equally  constant  tendency 
towards  restriction  of  numbers,  towards  celibacy,  and 
towards  reversion  to  the  classes  below.  This  is  the 
largest  operating  cause  constantly  tending  to  the 
decay  and  extinction  of  aristocratic  families. 

But  while  this  cause  has  been  already,  to  a  consid- 
erable extent,  recognised  in  the  limited  application 
here  noticed,  its  vital  connection  with  a  much  wider 

mon  with  the  beast  become  extended,  refined,  exalted.  It  is  not  merely 
hunger,  but  taste,  that  seeks  gratification  in  food;  in  clothes,  he  seeks 
not  merely  comfort,  but  adornment;  the  rude  shelter  becomes  a  house; 
the  undiscriminating  sexual  attraction  begins  to  transmute  itself  into 
subtle  influences,  and  the  hard  and  common  stock  of  animal  life  to  blos- 
som and  to  bloom  into  shapes  of  delicate  beauty.  As  power  to  gratify 
his  wants  increases,  so  does  aspiration  grow.  Held  down  to  lower 
levels  of  desire,  Lucullus  will  sup  with  Lucullus;  twelve  boars  turn 
on  spits  that  Antony's  mouthful  of  meat  may  be  done  to  a  turn; 
every  kingdom  of  Nature  be  ransacked  to  add  to  Cleopatra's  charms, 
and  marble  colonnades  and  hanging  gardens  and  pyramids  that  rival 
the  hills  arise."  —  Progress  and  Poverty. 


280  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

natural  law,  operating  throughout  society  at  large, 
and  upon  the  race  in  general,  has  scarcely  received 
any  attention.  Not  only  do  the  aristocratic  classes 
die  out,  but  it  would  appear  that  the  members  of  the 
classes,  into  which  it  is  always  the  tendency  of  a  very 
prevalent  type  of  intellectual  ability  to  rise,  are  being 
continually  weeded  out  by  a  process  of  natural  selec- 
tion, which  it  appears  to  have  been  the  effect  of  our 
own  civilisation  to  foster  to  a  peculiar  degree.  This 
natural  law  was  clearly  brought  out  in  a  remarkable 
paper  read  by  Dr.  Ogle  before  the  Statistical  Society 
of  London  in  March  1890.1  The  professional  and  in- 
dependent classes  (to  the  level  of  which  the  intellect- 
ual ability  of  all  the  classes  below  continually  tends 
to  rise)  marry,  says  the  author,  considerably  later, 
and  have  far  fewer  children  per  marriage  than  the 
classes  below  them.  For  instance,  he  shows  that  the 
mean  age  at  marriage  in  the  professional  and  inde- 
pendent classes  is  seven  years  more  advanced  for  men 
and  four  years  more  advanced  for  women  than 
amongst  miners  ;  and,  further,  "that  the  lower  the  sta- 
tion in  life  the  earlier  the  age  at  which  marriage  is 
contracted,  and  that  the  difference,  in  this  respect,  be- 
tween the  upper  and  lower  classes  is  very  great  indeed." 
In  addition  to  this  it  was  also  found  that  the  profes- 
sional and  independent  classes  possessed  a  proportion 
of  permanent  bachelors  far  above  the  rest. 

We  have  here  apparently  the  same  tendency  ex- 
tending downwards  through  the  community,  and  con- 
tinually operating  to  prevent  the  intellectual  average 
of  one  generation  from  rising  above  the  level  of  that 
preceding  it.     The  same  law  of  population  has  been 

1  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  June  1890. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      281 

noticed  in  France,  where  it  is  found  that  the  agricul- 
tural population  have  more  children  than  the  indus- 
trial, and  that  still  fewer  children  are  born  to  families 
where  the  fathers  follow  a  liberal  profession.  It  op- 
erates also  in  other  countries,  and  it  does  not  at  all 
tend  to  be  restricted,  but  rather  the  reverse,  by  that 
social  development  taking  place  amongst  us  which  is 
ever  tending  to  lighten  the  burthens  of  existence  for 
the  lower  classes  of  the  community  at  the  general 
expense. 

The  full  meaning  of  these  facts  is  not,  indeed,  im- 
mediately perceived.  Mr.  Galton,  in  a  striking  pas- 
sage, has  dealt  with  what  he  described  as  the  heavy 
doom  of  any  subsection  of  a  prolific  people,  which  in 
this  manner  multiplied  less  rapidly  than  the  rest  of 
the  community  ;  and  the  example  which  he  takes  may 
be  profitably  quoted  at  length.  He  says,  "  Suppose 
two  men  M  and  N  about  22  years  old,  each  of  them 
having,  therefore,  the  expectation  of  living  to  the  age 
of  55,  or  33  years  longer  ;  and  suppose  that  M  marries 
at  once,  and  that  his  descendants,  when  they  arrive 
at  the  same  age,  do  the  same ;  but  that  N  delays 
until  he  has  laid  by  money,  and  does  not  marry  before 
he  is  33  years  old,  that  is  to  say,  1 1  years  later  than 
M,  and  his  descendants  also  follow  his  example.  Let 
us  further  make  the  two  very  moderate  suppositions 
that  the  early  marriages  of  race  M  result  in  an  in- 
crease of  I J  in  the  next  generation,  and  also  in  the 
production  of  3J  generations  in  a  century  ;  while  the 
late  marriages  of  race  N  result  in  an  increase  of  only 
i-J-  in  the  next  generation,  and  in  2J  generations  in 
one  century.  It  will  be  found  that  an  increase  of  i| 
in  each  generation  accumulating  on  the  principle  of 


282  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

compound  interest  during  3-|  generations  becomes 
rather  more  than  -^8-  times  the  original  amount,  while 
an  increase  of  i^  for  2\  generations  is  barely  as  much 
as  \  times  the  original  amount.  Consequently  the 
increase  of  the  race  of  M  at  the  end  of  a  century  will 
be  greater  than  that  of  N,  in  the  ratio  of  18  to  7,  that 
is  to  say,  it  will  be  rather  more  than  7,\  times  as  great. 
hi  two  centuries  the  progeny  of  M  will  be  more  than  6 
times,  and  in  three  centuries  more  than  15  times  as 
numerous  as  those  of  N."1 

These  are  noteworthy  conclusions.  It  is  evident 
that  our  society  must  be  considered  as  an  organism 
which  is  continually  renewing  itself  from  the  base, 
and  dying  away  in  those  upper  strata  into  which  it  is 
the  tendency  of  a  large  class  of  intellectual  ability 
to  rise ;  the  strata  which  possess  the  reproductive 
capacity  most  fully  being  probably  the  lower  sections 
of  the  middle  class.  Taken  in  connection  with  the 
probable  higher  intellectual  development  of  past  races 
now  extinct,  such  facts  must  be  held  as  tending  to 
establish  the  view  that  our  intellectual  development 
is  a  far  slower  and  more  complex  process  than  we 
have  hitherto  imagined  it  to  be.  They  render  it  still 
more  difficult  for  us  to  adhere  to  the  view  according 
to  which  human  progress  is  to  be  regarded  as  being 
mainly  a  matter  of  intellectual  development.  This 
latter  development  seems  to  be  subject  to  larger  evo- 
lutionary forces  which,  so  far  from  furthering  it,  tend, 
in  the  conditions  we  have  been  discussing,  to  check 
and  restrain  it  in  a  most  marked  manner. 

If  the  examination  is  continued,  and  we  now  carry 
forward  into  other  departments  our  scrutiny  of  the 

1  Hereditary  Genius,  p.  340. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      283 

facts  upon  which  the  prevailing  opinion  which  iden- 
tifies social  progress  with  intellectual  progress  is 
founded,  it  is  only  to  discover  that  difficulties  and 
discrepancies  of  the  most  striking  kind  continue  to 
present  themselves  even  in  quarters  where  they  might 
be  least  expected.  A  great  quantity  of  data  as  to 
the  relative  cranial  development  of  different  races, 
existing  and  extinct,  has  been  collected  by  anthro- 
pologists, but  the  conclusions  to  which  many  leading 
authorities  have  come  as  the  result  of  a  comparison 
of  these  data  are  not  a  little  interesting.  It  may  be 
observed  that  in  nearly  all  anthropological  literature 
of  this  kind,  the  position  which  is  assumed,  almost  as 
a  matter  of  course,  at  the  outset,  and  from  which  all 
the  argument  proceeds  is,  that  the  attainment  by 
any  people  of  a  state  of  high  social  development 
should  imply  a  corresponding  state  of  high  intel- 
lectual development.  But  having  started  with  these 
premises,  it  will  be  noticed  what  difiiculties  present 
themselves.  Criticising  a  widely-quoted  table  of  the 
cranial  capacity  of  various  races,  published  by  M. 
Topinard  in  his  Anthropologic,  De  Quatrefages  says, 
its  chief  value  is  to  show  into  what  serious  errors  an 
estimation  of  the  development  of  a  race  from  its 
cranial  capacity  would  lead  us.  "  By  such  an  estima- 
tion the  troglodytes  of  the  Cavern  of  L'Homme-Mort 
would  be  superior  to  all  races  enumerated  in  the 
table,  including  contemporary  Parisians."1 

Further  on,  from  a  criticism  of  these  and  other 
features  of  the  same  table,  De  Quatrefages  reaches 
the  conclusion  that  "there  can  be  no  real  relation 
between  the  dimensions  of  the  cranial  capacity  and 

1  The  Hitman  Species,  by  A.  De  Quatrefages,  chap.  xxx. 


284  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

social  development."1  But  as  social  development  is 
taken  by  the  author  to  imply  a  corresponding  intel- 
lectual development,  the  two  being  often  used  as 
interconvertible  terms  by  anthropologists,  he  finds 
himself,  therefore,  driven  to  the  remarkable  conclu- 
sion that  the  evidence  generally  seems  to  "  establish 
beyond  a  doubt  the  fact,  which  already  clearly  results 
from  the  comparison  of  different  races,  namely,  that 
the  development  of  the  intellectual  faculties  of  man 
is  to  a  great  extent  independent  of  the  capacity  of 
the  cranium,  and  the  volume  of  the  brain."  2 

If,  however,  we  come  to  examine  for  ourselves  that 
large  class  of  facts  drawn  from  contemporary  life, 
upon  which  this  popular  opinion  as  to  the  intimate 
connection  between  the  high  social  development  and 
the  high  intellectual  development  of  a  people  is 
founded,  it  is  only  to  find  other  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  this  view  confronting  us.  The  evidence  upon 
which  the  general  opinion  as  to  the  existence  of  an 
immeasurable  intellectual  gulf  between  the  higher 
and  the  lower  races  is  based  is  certainly  of  a  very 
marked  kind.  The  well-known  achievements  of  our 
civilisation  in  all  the  arts  of  life  are  pointed  to,  and 
we  are  asked  to  compare  these  with  the  results  ob- 
tained by  races  lower  in  the  scale  than  ourselves. 
The  greatest  confusion  of  mind  prevails,  however,  as 
to  the  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  such  a  state  of  things. 
Conclusions  utterly  unwarrantable  and  unjustifiable  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  interval  which  separates  us  from 
what  are  called  the  lower  races  are  constantly  drawn 
from  these  facts. 

1  The  Human  Species,  by  A.  De  Quatrefages,  chap.  xxx. 

2  Ibid. 


IX        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      285 

It  may  of  course  be  fully  admitted,  at  the  outset, 
that  the  achievements  of  the  human  mind,  in  our 
present  civilisation,  are  calculated  to  impress  the 
mind  in  the  highest  degree,  and  more  especially  when 
they  are  compared  with  the  absence  of  any  such  im- 
posing results,  amongst  the  lower  races.  To  com- 
municate instantaneously,  and  to  speak  with  each 
other  when  separated  by  great  distances ;  to  com- 
pute years  in  advance,  and  accurately  to  a  fraction  of 
time,  the  movements  of  heavenly  bodies  distant  from 
us  by  many  millions  of  miles ;  to  take  a  mechanical 
impression  of  spoken  words,  and  to  reproduce  them 
after  the  lapse  of  an  indefinite  period ;  to  describe 
with  absolute  knowledge  the  composition  of  fixed 
stars,  through  analysis,  with  delicate  instruments,  of 
light  which  left  its  source  before  the  dawn  of  our 
history  —  all  appear  stupendous  achievements  of  the 
human  intellect.  In  like  manner  the  complexity  of 
our  civilised  life,  our  trades  and  manufactures,  and 
the  implements  and  machinery  with  which  they  are 
carried  on,  as  well  as  the  stored-up  knowledge  from 
which  they  all  result,  would  appear  to  separate  us  by 
an  immense  gulf  from  the  lower  races. 

But  to  take,  as  is  often  done,  such  results  to  be 
the  measure  of  the  intellectual  difference  separating 
us  from  the  lower  races,  is  clearly  a  most  short-sighted 
and  altogether  unjustifiable  procedure.  It  only  needs 
a  little  reflection  to  enable  us  to  perceive  that  the 
marvellous  accomplishments  of  modern  civilisation 
are  primarily  the  measure  of  the  social  stability  and 
social  efficiency,  and  not  of  the  intellectual  pre- 
eminence, of  the  peoples  who  have  produced  them. 
They  do  not  necessarily  imply  any  extraordinary  in 


286  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

tellectual  development  in  ourselves  at  all.  They  are 
not  the  colossal  products  of  individual  minds  amongst 
us  ;  they  are  all  the  results  of  small  accumulations  of 
knowledge  slowly  and  painfully  made  and  added  to  by 
many  minds  through  an  indefinite  number  of  gener- 
ations in  the  past,  every  addition  to  this  store  of 
knowledge  affording  still  greater  facilities  for  further 
additions.  It  must  not  be  assumed,  even  of  the 
minds  that  have  from  time  to  time  made  considerable 
additions  to  this  common  stock  of  accumulated  knowl- 
edge, that  they  have  been  separated  from  the  general 
average,  or  from  the  minds  of  other  races  of  men  of 
lower  social  development,  by  the  immense  intellectual 
interval  which  each  achievement  standing  by  itself 
would  seem  to  imply. 

For,  it  must  be  remembered  that  even  the  ablest 
men  amongst  us  whose  names  go  down  to  history 
connected  with  great  discoveries  and  inventions,  have 
each  in  reality  advanced  the  sum  of  knowledge  by  a 
comparatively  small  addition.  In  the  fulness  of  time, 
and  when  the  ground  has  been  slowly  and  laboriously 
prepared  for  it  by  a  vast  army  of  workers,  the  great 
idea  fructifies  and  the  discovery  is  made.  It  is,  in 
fact,  not  the  work  of  one,  but  of  a  great  number  of 
persons  whose  previous  work  has  led  up  to  it.  How 
true  it  is  that  all  the  great  ideas  have  been  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  time  rather  than  of  individuals,  may  be 
the  more  readily  realised  when  it  is  remembered  that 
as  regards  a  large  number  of  them,  there  have  been 
rival  claims  for  the  honour  of  authorship  put  forward 
by  persons  who,  working  quite  independently,  have 
arrived  at  like  results  almost  simultaneously.  Thus 
rival  and  independent  claims  have  been  made  for  the 


IX        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      287 

discovery  of  the  Differential  Calculus,  the  doctrine  of 
the  Conservation  of  Energy,  the  Evolution  theory, 
the  interpretation  of  Egyptian  Hieroglyphics,  the 
Undulatory  theory  of  Light  ;  for  the  invention  of  the 
Steam  Engine,  the  method  of  Spectrum  Analysis, 
the  Telegraph  and  the  Telephone,  as  well  as  many 
other  of  the  discoveries  and  inventions  which  have 
been  epoch-making  in  the  history  of  the  world.  No 
great  idea  can,  in  truth,  be  said  to  have  been  the 
product  of  a  single  mind.  As  a  recent  socialist 
writer  very  aptly  and  truthfully  remarks,  "  All  that 
man  produces  to-day  more  than  did  his  cave-dwelling 
ancestors,  he  produces  by  virtue  of  the  accumulated 
achievements,  inventions,  and  improvements  of  the 
intervening  generations,  together  with  the  social  and 
industrial  machinery  which  is  their  legacy,"  and  fur- 
ther, "  Nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  parts  out  of 
the  thousand  of  every  man's  produce  are  the  result  of 
his  social  inheritance  and  environment." x  This  is 
so ;  and  it  is,  if  possible,  even  more  true  of  the  work 
of  our  brains  than  of  the  work  of  our  hands. 

When,  however,  we  turn  now  to  that  great  body  of 
literature  which  deals  with  the  comparative  develop- 
ment of  the  inferior  races,  it  is  not  a  little  surprising 
to  find  that  one  of  its  features  is  the  tendency  almost 
invariably  displayed  therein,  even  by  high  authorities, 
to  quite  lose  sight  of  and  ignore  the  foregoing  consid- 
erations. Thus,  one  of  the  commonest  assumptions 
to  be  met  with  in  anthropological  literature  is  that 
that  kind  of  development  which  is  the  result,  almost 
exclusively,   of   social  inheritance,   and  which  must, 

1  E.  Bellamy,  Contemporary  Review,  July  1890,  "  What  Nationalism 
means." 


288  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

therefore,  be  regarded  only  as  the  true  mark  and  evi- 
dence of  the  high  social  qualities  of  a  race,  is  to  be 
taken  as  evidence  of  the  high  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  that  race.  And  as  a  consequence  we  find 
the  converse  assumption  equally  common.  If  a  race 
is  without  qualities  contributing  to  social  efficiency, 
and  has  consequently  advanced  little  towards  social 
development,  its  members  have  hitherto  been  rele- 
gated (equally  unhesitatingly  and  as  a  matter  of 
course)  to  a  corresponding  grade  of  intellectual  im- 
potency. 

We  have,  accordingly,  presented  to  us  the  strange 
sight  of  those  who  make  comparisons  between  our- 
selves and  the  lower  races,  taking  as  the  measure  of 
our  individual  mental  stature  the  whole  of  that  vast 
intellectual  accumulation  which  belongs  to  society 
and  past  generations,  and  which  is,  strictly  speaking, 
the  true  measure  of  our  social  efficiency.  The  result 
is  of  course  highly  flattering  to  our  intellectual  pride 
when  we  are  compared  in  this  way  with  races  of  low 
social  efficiency,  and,  therefore,  of  no  social  history. 
It  is  to  some  extent  as  if  one  standing  on  the  dome 
of  St.  Paul's  should  forget  for  a  moment  the  vast 
structure  beneath  him  and  triumphantly  call  the  world 
to  witness  the  immense  difference  between  his  physi- 
cal stature  and  that  of  the  persons  below  him  in  the 
street. 

Let  us  examine  in  detail  the  evidence  generally  ac- 
cepted as  tending  to  exhibit  the  great  intellectual  dif- 
ference between  the  members  of  the  higher  and  the 
lower  races,  and  see  what  conclusions  we  are  war- 
ranted in  drawing  therefrom.  It  will  be  noticed  that 
there  is  a  class  of  facts  usually  accepted  as  evidence 


IX        EVOLUTION   NOT   PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      289 

of  this  mental  interval  which  attracts  attention  before 
any  other.  The  lower  races  have,  as  a  rule,  no  words 
in  their  languages  to  express  many  of  the  more  com- 
plex ideas  and  relationships  that  have  been  familiar 
to  members  of  the  higher  races  from  childhood,  and 
a  knowledge  of  which  has  become  almost  second 
nature  to  these  latter.  For  instance,  savage  races 
are  nearly  always  without  any  but  the  most  element- 
ary conception  of  numbers.  They  are  generally  un- 
able to  count,  and  not  infrequently  they  are  without 
words  in  their  language  to  express  numbers  higher 
than  five  or  even  three.  This  last-mentioned  fact 
has  been  very  generally  noticed ;  scarcely  any  other 
peculiarity  seems  to  make  so  much  impression  upon 
members  of  the  higher  races  when  first  brought  into 
contact  with  uncivilised  men.  Yet  the  peoples  who 
are  in  this  state  often  possess  flocks  and  herds,  and 
each  owner  knows  when  he  has  got  all  his  own  cattle 
and  will  instantly  detect  the  loss  of  one ;  not,  how- 
ever, because  he  can  tell  how  many  he  possesses,  but 
only  because  he  remembers  each  one  individually. 

Mr.  Francis  Galton  relates  in  this  connection  inci- 
dents in  his  experience  with  the  Damaras  which  have 
become  classical  in  anthropological  literature.  They 
have  been  universally  quoted  as  exhibiting  the  great 
mental  interval  between  the  higher  and  the  lower 
races.  He  states :  "  When  bartering  is  going  on 
each  sheep  must  be  paid  for  separately.  Thus,  sup- 
pose two  sticks  of  tobacco  to  be  the  rate  of  exchange 
for  one  sheep,  it  would  sorely  puzzle  a  Damara  to 
take  two  sheep  and  to  give  him  four  sticks."1  He 
relates  having  attempted  a  transaction  of  this  kind, 

1  Narrative  of  an  Explorer  in  Tropical  South  Africa,  p.  133. 
u 


290  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

and  the  resulting  confusion  of  the  Damara  is  de- 
scribed. It  continued  "till  two  sticks  were  put  into 
his  hand  and  one  sheep  driven  away,  and  then  the 
other  two  sticks  given  him  and  the  second  sheep 
driven  away."  *  When  a  heifer  was  bought  for  ten 
sticks  of  tobacco,  the  large  hands  of  the  native  were 
spread  out  on  the  ground  and  a  stick  had  to  be  placed 
on  each  finger. 

The  effect  of  experiences  of  this  kind  —  and  they 
are  quoted  at  great  length  by  most  travellers  and 
explorers  who  have  come  into  contact  with  uncivil- 
ised races  —  is  nearly  always  the  same  on  European 
observers.  The  impression  produced  thereby  on  Mr. 
Galton's  mind  is,  indeed,  made  quite  clear.  He 
forms,  in  consequence,  a  very  low  estimate  of  the 
mental  capacity  of  the  Damaras ;  so  much  so,  that 
a  little  further  on  he  relates  that  while  he  watched 
a  Damara  floundering  hopelessly  in  a  calculation  on 
one  side,  he  observed  his  spaniel  equally  embarrassed 
on  the  other.  She  had  half  a  dozen  new-born  pup- 
pies, and  two  or  three  had  been  removed,  but  she 
could  not  make  out  if  all  were  .present.  She  evi- 
dently had  a  vague  notion  of  counting,  but  the  figures 
were  too  large  for  her ;  and  Mr.  Galton  draws  the 
conclusion  that,  taking  the  two,  the  dog  and  the 
Damara,  "  the  comparison  reflected  no  great  honour 
on  the  man."2 

The  fallacy  which  underlies  the  reasoning  based  on 
facts  of  this  kind,  by  which  the  mental  inferiority  of 
uncivilised  races  is  supposed  to  be  proved,  is  not  im- 
mediately apparent ;  but  an  undoubted  and  extraor- 

1  Narrative  of  an  Explorer  in  Tropical  South  Africa,  p.  133. 

2  Ibid. 


ix         EVOLUTION   NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL       291 

dinary  fallacy  exists  nevertheless.  It  is  one  of  the 
commonest  examples  of  that  prevailing  tendency  to 
confuse  the  mental  equipment  which  we  receive  from 
the  civilisation  to  which  we  belong,  with  the  mental 
capacity  with  which  nature  has  endowed  us.  Mr. 
Galton  might,  by  a  very  simple  experiment,  have  con- 
vinced himself  at  any  time  that  most  of  us — proud 
inheritors  of  "the  supreme  Caucasian  brain"  though 
we  be  —  possess  as  individuals  only  much  the  same 
natural  grasp  of  numbers  as  the  Damara  of  whom  he 
had  so  low  an  opinion.  Any  one  who  doubts  this 
may  try  the  experiment  for  himself.  Let  him,  next 
time  he  makes  a  purchase  and  receives  a  number  of 
coins  in  change,  say  whether  or  not  he  has  received 
the  correct  number  without  counting,  and  he  will 
probably  discover  that  above  a  very  low  number  he 
has  no  natural  power  of  telling  the  exact  number  of 
coins  he  is  looking  at. 

But  he  can  count  them,  it  will  be  said.  Very  true  ; 
it  is  here  that  the  fallacy  begins.  We  make  the  mis- 
take of  reckoning  this  power  of  counting  as  part  of 
the  intellectual  equipment  that  we  individuals  of  the 
civilised  races  have  received  from  nature.  We  have 
only  to  reflect  to  perceive  that  it  is  nothing  of  the 
kind.  Our  scale  of  numbers  is  nothing  more  than  a 
kind  of  mental  tape-measure,  with  which  we  are  pro- 
vided ready-made  by  the  society  to  which  we  belong, 
and  which  we  apply  to  aggregates  of  numbers  just  as 
we  should  an  ordinary  tape-measure  to  aggregates  of 
units  of  length  to  determine  how  many  there  are. 
But  this  mental  scale  is  certainly  not  born  with  us. 
It  has  been  the  slowly-perfected  product  of  an  im- 
mense number  of  generations  stretching  back  into 


292  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  dim  obscurity  of  the  past ;  and  we  obtain  the 
power  which  it  gives  us  over  uncivilised  man,  not  as  a 
gift  direct  from  nature  to  ourselves,  but  as  part  of  the 
accumulated  stock  of  knowledge  of  the  civilisation  to 
which  we  belong.  Without  this  scale  we  should,  in 
fact,  have  to  resort  to  the  method  of  uncivilised  man 
with  his  cattle  —  we  should  have  to  identify  and  re- 
member each  unit  individually.  When  we  count  we 
are  really  performing  no  higher  intellectual  operation 
than  the  Damara  who  told  his  tobacco  sticks  against 
his  fingers.  The  mechanical  scale  with  which  we  are 
provided  by  society  in  our  system  of  numeration  is, 
of  course,  a  far  superior  one.  But  that  is  all ;  for, 
when  we  count,  we  only  tell  off  the  units  against  it 
one  by  one  in  exactly  the  same  manner  that  the  sav- 
age tells  them  off  against  his  fingers. 

The  true  lesson  of  this,  and  of  the  large  class  of 
similar  experiences  commonly  supposed  to  prove  the 
low  mental  development  of  uncivilised  man,  is  not  that 
he  is  so  inferior  to  ourselves,  intellectually,  as  to  be 
almost  on  a  level  with  Mr.  Galton's  dog,  but  that  he 
is  almost  always  the  representative  of  a  race  of  low 
social  efficiency  with  consequently  no  social  history. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  individuals  of  civilised  races 
with  whom  he  is  contrasted  are  the  members  of  a 
community  with  a  long  record  of  social  stability  and 
continuity,  which  is,  therefore,  in  possession  of  a  vast 
accumulated  store  of  knowledge  inherited  from  past 
generations.  That  is  to  say,  we  are  the  representa- 
tives of  peoples  necessarily  possessing  high  social 
qualities,  but  not  by  any  means  and  to  the  same  de- 
gree these  high  intellectual  qualities  we  so  readily 
assume. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      293 

It  will  be  found,  if  we  continue  our  examination  in 
other  directions,  that  this  exaggerated  conception  of 
our  intellectual  superiority  to  races  of  lower  social  de- 
velopment rests  to  a  great  extent  on  the  same  precari- 
ous foundations.  Facts  which  seem  to  be  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  to  reconcile  with  the  prevailing  views  as 
to  our  intellectual  superiority  over  the  peoples  known 
as  the  lower  races,  continue  to  be  encountered  on 
every  side.  The  European  races  in  India,  if  judged 
by  those  qualities  which  win  for  a  race  ascendency 
in  the  world,  have  some  claim  to  consider  themselves 
the  superiors  of  the  natives  over  whom  they  rule. 
Yet,  since  the  development  of  an  efficient  system  of 
higher  education  in  India,  these  natives  have  proved 
themselves  the  rivals  of  Europeans  in  European 
branches  of  learning.  Indian  and  Burmese  students, 
who  have  come  to  England  to  be  trained  for  the  legal 
and  other  professions,  have  proved  themselves  to  be 
not  the  inferiors  of  their  European  colleagues ;  and 
they  have,  from  time  to  time,  equalled  and  even  sur- 
passed the  best  English  students  against  whom  they 
have  been  matched. 

Even  those  races  which  are  melting  away  at  the 
mere  contact  of  European  civilisation  supply  evidence 
which  appears  to  be  quite  irreconcilable  with  the  pre- 
vailing view  as  to  their  great  intellectual  inferiority. 
The  Maoris  in  New  Zealand,  though  they  are  slowly 
disappearing  before  the  race  of  higher  social  efficiency 
with  which  they  have  come  into  contact,  do  not  appear 
to  show  any  intellectual  incapacity  for  assimilating 
European  ideas,  or  for  acquiring  proficiency  and  dis- 
tinction in  any  branch  of  European  learning.  Al- 
though they  have,  within  fifty  years,  dwindled  from 


294  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

80,000  to  40,000,  and  still  continue  to  make  rapid 
strides  on  the  downward  path,  the  Registrar-General 
of  New  Zealand,  in  a  recent  report  on  the  condition 
of  the  colony,  says  of  them  that  they  possess  fine 
characteristics,  both  mental  and  physical,  and  readily 
adopt  the  manners  and  customs  of  their  civilised 
neighbours.  He  asserts  that  in  mental  qualifications 
they  can  hardly  be  deemed  naturally  an  inferior  race, 
and  that  the  native  members  of  both  the  Legislative 
Council  and  the  House  of  Representatives  take  a  digni- 
fied, active,  and  intelligent  part  in  the  debates,  espe- 
cially in  those  having  any  reference  to  Maori  interests.1 
Even  the  Australian  aborigines  seem  to  provide  us 
with  facts  strangely  at  variance  with  the  prevailing 
theories.  The  Australian  native  has  been,  by  the 
common  consent  of  the  civilised  world,  placed  intel- 
lectually almost  at  the  bottom  of  the  list  of  the  exist- 
ing races  comprising  the  human  family.  He  has  been 
the  zero  from  which  anthropologists  and  ethnologists 
have  long  reckoned  our  intellectual  progress  upwards. 
His  mental  capacity  is  universally  accepted  as  being 
of  a  very  low  order.  Yet  this  despised  member  of 
the  race,  possessing  usually  no  words  in  his  native 
languages  for  numbers  above  three,  whose  mental 
capacity  is  reckoned  degrees  lower  than  that  of  the 
Damara  whom  Mr.  Galton  compared  disparagingly 
with  his  dog,  exhibits  under  our  eyes  powers  of  mind 
that  should  cause  us  seriously  to  reflect  before  com- 
mitting ourselves  hastily  to  current  theories  as  to  the 
immense  mental  gulf  between  him  and  ourselves.  It 
is  somewhat  startling,  for  instance,  to  read  that  in  the 

1  Report  from  the  Registrar-General  of  New  Zealand  on  the  Condi- 
tion of  the  Colony.     Vide  Nature,  24th  October  1889, 


ix        EVOLUTION   NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL       295 

state  schools  in  the  Australian  colonies  it  has  been 
observed  that  aboriginal  children  learn  quite  as  easily 
and  rapidly  as  children  of  European  parents ;  and, 
lately,  that  "  for  three  consecutive  years  the  aboriginal 
school  at  Remahyack,  in  Victoria,  stood  highest  of  all 
the  state  schools  of  the  colony  in  examination  results, 
obtaining  ioo  per  cent  of  marks."  *  The  same  facts 
present  themselves  in  the  United  States.  The  chil- 
dren of  the  large  negro  population  in  that  country 
are  on  just  the  same  footing  as  children  of  the 
white  population  in  the  public  elementary  schools. 
Yet  the  negro  children  exhibit  no  intellectual  infe- 
riority ;  they  make  just  the  same  progress  in  the  sub- 
jects taught  as  do  the  children  of  white  parents,  and 
the  deficiency  they  exhibit  later  in  life  is  of  quite  a 
different  kind. 

Lastly,  if  we  closely  examine  the  statements  of 
those  who,  while  acknowledging  that  the  lower  races 
show  this  ability  to  learn  easily  and  rapidly  in  suit- 
able circumstances,  nevertheless  maintain  that  they 
do  not  make  progress  beyond  a  certain  point,  we  find 
that  the  causes  to  which  this  result  is  attributed  by 
discriminating  observers  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the 
whole  subject.  Members  of  the  inferior  races,  it  is 
pointed  out,  scarcely  ever  possess  those  qualities  of 
intense  application  and  of  prolonged  persevering 
effort  without  which  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to 
obtain  high  proficiency  in  any  branch  of  learning. 
Exactly  so ;  it  is  here  that  we  have  the  true  cause 
of  the  deficiency  displayed  by  the  lower  races.     But 

1  Rev.  John  Mathew  on  the  Australian  Aborigines.  Proceedings  of 
the  Royal  Society  of  New  South  Wales,  vol.  xxii.  part  ii.  Quoted  from 
summary  in  Nature,  25th  December  1890. 


296  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

such  a  deficiency  is  not  to  be  described  as  profound 
intellectual  inferiority.  The  lacking  qualities  are  not 
intellectual  qualities  at  all ;  they  are  precisely  those 
which  contribute  in  so  high  a  degree  to  social  effi- 
ciency and  racial  ascendency,  and  they  are,  conse- 
quently, as  might  be  expected,  the  invariable  inheri- 
tance of  those  races  which  have  reached  a  state  of 
high  social  development,  and  of  those  races  only. 

Again,  these  considerations  acquire  a  certain  sig- 
nificance, which  must  not  be  passed  unnoticed,  from 
the  current  history  of  the  peoples  comprised  in  our 
Western  civilisation.  In  view  of  the  profound  in- 
termixture of  races  that  has  taken  place  in  almost 
every  European  country,  and  that  is  taking  place  on 
a  large  scale  in  America  at  the  present  day,  it  is, 
strictly  speaking,  inadmissible  to  speak  of  any  par- 
ticular nationality  as  representing  any  particular  race. 
National  types  of  character,  in  so  far  as  they  have 
had  a  racial  origin,  probably  result  from  blends  in 
varying  degrees  of  the  mental  characteristics  of 
the  races  which  have  gone  to  make  up  the  nations. 
Nevertheless  we  may  still,  within  limitations,  draw 
certain  conclusions  as  to  the  racial  characteristics  of 
some  of  the  peoples  who  have  become  ingredients  in 
our  modern  nationalities.  Certain  characteristics  of 
two  such  well-defined  groups  as  the  Celtic  and  Teu- 
tonic peoples  may  still  be  clearly  distinguished. 

Now  there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  as  regards  the 
peoples  of  the  Celtic  stock,  they  must  be  classed  high 
intellectually.  We  must  recognise  this,  both  from  a 
review  of  the  history  of  individuals  and  from  an 
examination  of  the  history  of  the  countries  in  which 
the  characteristics  of  these  peoples  have  found  the 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      297 

fullest  and  truest  expression  they  have  obtained  in 
our  civilisation.  If  we  take  France,  which  of  the 
three  leading  countries  of  Western  Europe  probably 
possesses  the  largest  leaven  of  Celtic  blood,  any  im- 
partial person,  who  had  fairly  considered  the  evidence, 
would  probably  find  himself  compelled  to  admit  that 
a  very  strong  if  not  a  conclusive  case  could  be  made 
out  for  placing  the  French  people  a  degree  higher 
as  regards  certain  intellectual  characteristics  than  any 
other  of  the  Western  peoples.  When  all  due  allow- 
ance is  made  for  national  jealousies,  the  extent  to 
which  this  general  obligation  to  the  French  intellect 
is  acknowledged  by  discriminating  observers  in  various 
countries  is  remarkable.  The  influence  of  the  French 
intellect  is,  in  fact,  felt  throughout  the  whole  fabric 
of  our  Western  civilisation ;  in  the  entire  region  of 
politics,  in  nearly  every  branch  of  art,  and  in  every 
department  of  higher  thought. 

Even  where  the  intellect  of  the  Teutonic  peoples 
obtains  the  highest  possible  results,  it  may  be  noticed 
that  there  is  a  certain  distinction  in  kind  to  be  made 
between  the  two  qualities  of  intellect.  The  Teutonic 
peoples  tend,  as  a  rule,  to  obtain  the  most  striking 
intellectual  results  where  profound  research,  pains- 
taking, conscientious  endeavour,  and  the  laborious 
piecing  together  and  building  up  of  the  fabric  of 
knowledge  go  to  produce  the  highest  effects.  But 
the  idealism  of  the  French  mind  is  largely  wanting. 
That  light,  yet  agile  and  athletic  grasp  of  principles 
and  ideas  which  is  characteristic  of  the  French  mind 
is  to  some  extent  missing.  Certain  qualities,  too, 
peculiar  to  the  ancient  Greek  mind,  seem  to  find  a 
truer  expression   amongst  the    French   people   than 


298  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

they  do  elsewhere  in  our  civilisation.  Even  in  the  art 
of  the  Teutonic  peoples  we  seem  to  miss  some  of  the 
highest  qualities  —  a  deficiency  which  has  been  some- 
times defined  as  that  of  a  people  in  whom  the  ethical 
sense  overshadows  the  aesthetic.  Any  conscientious 
observer,  when  first  brought  into  close  contact  with 
the  French  mind,  must  feel  that  there  is  an  indefinite 
something  in  it  of  a  distinctly  high  intellectual  order 
which  is  not  native  to  either  the  German  or  the  Eng- 
lish peoples.  It  is  felt  in  the  current  literature  and 
the  current  art  of  the  time  no  less  than  in  the  high- 
est products  of  the  national  genius  in  the  past.  In 
the  streets  of  the  capital  and  the  provincial  towns, 
in  the  public  buildings,  in  the  churches,  temples,  and 
art  galleries,  even  in  the  bookstalls,  one  encounters  at 
every  turn  something  of  that  noble  intellectual  sense 
of  the  ideal  and  the  appropriate  which  was  charac- 
teristic of  the  Greek  mind.1 

But  while  all  this  must  be  acknowledged,  the  fact, 
nevertheless,  remains  that  the  Teutonic  peoples  un- 
doubtedly possess  certain  equally  characteristic  quali- 
ties, not  in  themselves  intellectual,  which  contribute 
in  a  higher  degree  to  social  efficiency,  and  which  — 
having  in  view  the  manner  in  which  natural  selec- 
tion is  operating  and  the  direction  in  which  the  evo- 
lution of  the  race  is  proceeding  —  must  apparently 
be   pronounced  to  be  greatly  more  important   than 

1  It  is  interesting  to  notice,  in  this  connection,  that  Mr.  Grant  Allen 
has  recently  asserted  ("The  Celt  in  English  Art,"  Fortnightly  Review, 
part  i.  1 891)  that,  while  in  our  complex  English  nationality  the  Celt's 
place  in  literature  is  unquestionable,  in  art  it  only  needs  pointing  out. 
He  maintains  also  that  the  idealism  which  exists  in  English  art  and 
literature,  and  even  in  English  religion  and  politics,  is  largely  a  Celtic 
product, 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      299 

these  merely  intellectual  qualities.  At  a  future  time, 
when  the  history  of  the  nineteenth  century  comes 
to  be  written  with  that  sense  of  proportion  which  dis- 
tance alone  can  give,  it  will  be  perceived  that  there 
are  two  great  features  of  this  century  which  give  a 
distinctive  character  to  its  history,  and  by  the  side 
of  which  all  other  developments  and  events  will 
appear  dwarfed  and  insignificant.  The  first  is  the 
complete  and  absolute  triumph  throughout  our  West- 
ern civilisation  of  the  principles  of  that  political 
idealism  which  found  expression  in  the  French  Revo- 
lution. The  second  is  the  equally  triumphant  and 
overwhelming  expansion  of  the  peoples  of  Teutonic 
stock,  and  the  definite  and  final  worsting  by  them  in 
the  struggle  for  existence,  at  nearly  every  point  of 
contact  throughout  the  world,  of  that  other  branch  of 
the  Western  peoples  whose  intellectual  capacity  has 
thus  so  distinctly  left  its  mark  upon  the  century. 

By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  England 
and  France  had  closed  in  what  —  when  all  the  issues 
dependent  on  the  struggle  are  taken  into  account  — 
is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  stupendous  duels  that 
history  records.  Before  it  came  to  a  close  the  shock 
had  been  felt  throughout  the  civilised  world.  The 
contest  was  waged  in  Europe,  in  India,  in  Africa, 
over  the  North  American  continent,  and  on  the  high 
seas.  Judged  by  all  those  appearances  which  im- 
press the  imagination,  everything  was  in  favour  of 
the  more  brilliant  race.  In  armaments,  in  resources, 
in  population,  they  were  the  superior  people.  In  1789 
the  population  of  Great  Britain  was  only  9,600,00c),1 

1  Political  Geography.  Statistical  Tables  of  the  States  of  Europe, 
1789.     Lowdnes,  London. 


300  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  population  of  France  was  26, 300,000. *  The 
annual  revenue  of  France  was  ^24,ooo,ooo,2  that  of 
Great  Britain  was  only  ,£i5,650,ooo.3  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century  the  French  people 
numbered  some  27,000,000,*  while  the  whole  English- 
speaking  peoples,  including  the  Irish  and  the  popula- 
tion of  the  North  American  states  and  colonies,  did 
not  exceed  20,ooo,ooo.5 

By  the  beginning  of  the  last  decade  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  English-speaking  peoples,  not 
including  subject  peoples,  aboriginal  races,  or  the 
coloured  population  of  the  United  States,  had,  how- 
ever, expanded  to  the  enormous  total  of  101,000,000, 
while  the  French  people  scarcely  numbered  40,000,- 
000.  Looking  back  it  will  be  seen  that  the  former 
peoples  have  been  successful  at  almost  every  point 
throughout  the  world  at  which  the  conflict  has  been 
waged.  In  nearly  the  whole  of  the  North  American 
and  Australian  continents,  and  in  those  parts  of 
Southern  Africa  most  suitable  for  European  races, 
the  English-speaking  peoples  are  in  possession.  No 
other  peoples  have  so  firmly  and  permanently  estab- 

1  Estimated  by  E.  Levasseur.     Vide  La  Population  Francaise. 

2  Political  Geography.  Statistical  Tables  of  the  States  of  Europe, 
1789.     Lowdnes,  London.  3  Ibid. 

4  Le  premier  denombrement  de  la  Population  de  la  France,  celui  de 
1 801,  27,445,297.     E.  Levasseur. 

5  The  Statistical  Tables  of  Europe,  by  J.  G.  Boetticher,  dated  1800, 
and  said  to  be  correct  to  1 799,  gives  the  figures  as  follows :  — 

England  .  .  .  8,400,000 
Scotland  .  .  .  1,600,000 
Ireland  .         .         .        4,000,000 

In  the  report  on  10th  census  of  the  United  States,  the  population  of 
that  country  in  1800  is  estimated  at  5,308,000. 


IX        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      301 

lished  their  position.  No  limits  can  be  set  to  the 
expansion  they  are  likely  to  undergo  even  in  the  next 
century,  and  it  would  seem  almost  inevitable  that 
they  must  in  future  exercise  a  preponderating  influ- 
ence in  the  world. 

As  against  this  the  record  of  the  capable  French 
race  stands  out  in  strong  contrast.  One  of  the  prin- 
cipal features  of  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  has  been  the  further  humiliation  it  has 
undergone  at  the  hands  of  another  branch  of  the 
Teutonic  peoples ;  and  here  also  the  historian  will 
probably  have  to  distinguish  that  the  result  has 
been  in  no  way  accidental,  but  due  to  causes  which 
had  their  roots  deep  in  the  general  causes  which 
are  shaping  the  evolution  we  are  undergoing.  But 
remarkable  as  have  been  the  developments  of  the 
past  150  years,  none  of  them  have  more  clearly  con- 
tributed to  the  decadence  of  the  people  who,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  probably  represented  the 
highest  development  of  the  intellect  of  the  Western 
peoples,  than  a  cause  which  is  in  operation  within 
their  own  borders.  No  more  striking  history  of 
racial  self-effacement  has  ever  been  witnessed  than 
that  which  is  revealed  by  the  French  population 
statistics.  The  rate  of  increase  of  the  French  popu- 
lation has  been  for  years  growing  less  and  less, 
until  it  has  at  length  reached  the  vanishing  point ; 
and  France  stands  now,  a  solitary  example  amongst 
European  peoples,  with  a  population  showing  an 
actual  tendency  to  decrease.  The  excess  of  births 
over  deaths,  which  is  13  per  thousand  in  England, 
and  10  per  thousand  in  Germany,  oscillates  in  France 
between  an  excess  of  only   1   per  thousand  and  an 


302 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


actual  deficiency.  Nay  more,  the  only  section  of 
the  community  amongst  whom  the  births  show  a 
decided  tendency  to  outnumber  the  deaths  are  the 
foreigners  domiciled  in  France  ;  and  it  is  only  this 
increase,  and  the  continual  influx  of  foreigners,  which 
prevent  a  considerable  decrease  of  population  year  by 
year  in  France.1 

Viewed  from  the  standpoint  from  which  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  human  race  as  a  whole  is  to  be  regarded, 
the  record  of  the  past  1 50  years  must  be  pronounced 
to  have  been  almost  exclusively  disastrous  to  the 
French  people.  Not  only  have  they  withdrawn 
worsted  at  almost  every  point  from  that  great  rivalry 
of  races  which  filled  the  world  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, but  their  decadence  continues  within  their  bor- 

1  The  following  table  shows  the  movement  of  population  in  France 
in  the  period  between  1881  and  1890.  It  is  summarised  from  a  paper 
by  V.  Turquan,  which  appeared  in  the  Economiste  Erancais,  31st 
October  1891 :  — 


Excess  or 

Year. 

Births. 

Deaths. 

Deficiency  of 
Births. 

1881 

937,057 

822,828 

+  114,229 

1882 

935,566 

838,539 

+  97,027 

1883 

937,944 

841,141 

+  96,803 

1884 

937,758 

858,784 

+  78,974 

1885 

924,558 

836,897 

+  87,661 

1886 

912,838 

860,222 

+  52,616 

1887 

899,333 

842,797 

+  56,536 

1888 

882,639 

837,967 

+  44,672 

1889 

880,579 

794,933 

+  85,646 

1890 

838,059 

876,505 

—  38,446 

The  facts  for  a  wider  period  are  given  by  P.  Leroy-Beaulieu  in  a  paper 
that  appeared  in  the  Economiste  Erancais,  20th  and  27th  September 
1890,  of  which  a  translation  will  be  found  in  Appendix  III.  p.  341. 


IX        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      303 

ders.  Even  on  the  soil  of  France  they  do  not  appear 
to  hold  their  own  with  the  stranger  that  is  within 
their  gates.  M.  Lageneau  points  out  that  the  pres- 
ent tendency  of  population  must  be  to  place  France 
within  the  next  half-century  in  a  very  disadvantageous 
position  compared  with  other  great  nations.  Within 
a  century,  said  the  France  recently,  there  will  be  ten 
men  speaking  English  for  every  one  speaking  French. 
The  Universe  has  expressed  the  opinion  that  within 
half  a  century  "  France  will  have  fallen  below  Italy 
and  Spain  to  the  rank  of  a  second-rate  power. 
There  is  no  denying  the  figures.  If  this  continues 
in  addition  to  other  causes  of  decadence,  we  are  a 
lost  nation." 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  we  have,  proceeding  under 
our  eyes,  and  in  our  own  time,  a  rivalry  of  races 
tending,  when  its  results  are  understood,  to  confirm 
the  general  conclusion  at  which  we  have  already 
arrived.  It  can  hardly  be  held  that  intellectual 
capacity  has  been  the  determining  factor  on  the  side 
of  the  peoples  who  have  made  most  headway  in  this 
rivalry,  or  that,  in  the  result,  natural  selection  has 
exhibited  any  tendency  to  develop  this  quality.  On 
the  contrary,  we  would  appear  to  have  evidence  of 
the  same  tendency  that  has  been  distinguished  else- 
where in  the  history  of  social  progress.  It  is  not 
intellectual  capacity  that  natural  selection  appears  to 
be  developing  in  the  first  instance,  but  other  qualities 
contributing  more  directly  to  social  efficiency,  and, 
therefore,  of  immensely  more  importance  and  potency 
in  the  social  evolution  which  mankind  is  undergoing. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  ascendency  which 
the  Teutonic  peoples  have  won,  and  are  winning  in 


304  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  world,  is  mainly  due  to  the  higher  and  fuller 
development  these  last-mentioned  qualities  have 
attained  amongst  them.  There  can  also  apparently 
be  as  little  room  for  question  that  the  possession  of 
even  the  highest  intellectual  capacity  in  no  way 
tends  to  compensate  for  the  lack  of  these  qualities. 
We  may  even  go  further  and  say  that  its  possession 
without  these  qualities  distinctly  tends  to  further 
lower  the  social  efficiency  of  a  people. 

The  causes  of  the  more  recent  decadence  of  the 
French  nation  are  well  known.  The  decline  in  the 
population  is  almost  entirely  due  to  voluntary  causes. 
On  the  average,  out  of  every  thousand  men  over 
twenty  years  of  age  in  the  whole  of  France,  only  609 
are  married.1  Out  of  every  thousand  families,  as 
many  as  640  have  only  two  children  or  under  2  (and 
200  of  these  families  have  no  children  at  all).  The 
voluntary  limitation  of  offspring  M.  Lageneau  attrib- 
utes to  "  the  desire  of  the  parents  to  make  ample 
provision  for  the  children  they  do  have."  P.  Leroy- 
Beaulieu,  while  recognising  this  cause,  finds  it  "  asso- 
ciated still  more  with  a  lessening  of  religious  belief 
on  the  part  of  the  people,  and  a  modification  of  the 
old  ideas  of  resignation  and  submission  to  their  lot." 
We  have,  in  fact,  in  the  circumstance  only  one  of  the 
simplest  instances  of  that  enlightened  selfishness  in 
the  individual  which  must  always  lead  him  to  rank  his 
own  interests,  or  those  of  his  immediate  belongings, 

1  Statement  by  M.  Lageneau  at  a  meeting  of  the  Academie  des 
Sciences,  July  1890. 

2  Vide  Return  presented  to  the  Chamber  by  the  Minister  of  Finance 
summarised  in  the  Times,  23rd  June  1890.  Vide  also  La  Population 
Francaise,  by  E.  Levasseur. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      305 

in  the  actual  present  before  the  wider  and  entirely 
different  interests  of  the  longer-lived  social  organism 
to  which  he  belongs.     It  is  but  a  phase  of  that  cen- 
tral problem  underlying  our  development  in  society 
which  we  have  been  discussing  throughout.     It  is  one 
of  the  commonest  examples  of  the  disintegrating  in- 
fluence of  that  self-assertive  rationalism  in  the  indi- 
vidual, towards  the  control  of  which   the   forces   at 
work  in  the   evolution  of  human  society  have  been 
from  the  beginning  slowly  but  unceasingly  operating. 
If  we  now  review  the  ground  over  which  we  have 
travelled,  we   find   that   we   have   got  a  remarkable 
series  of  facts  which  must  appear  perplexing  and  in- 
explicable if  we  are  to  accept  the  view  that  the  evolu- 
tion the  race  is  undergoing  in  society,  and  by  which 
certain  sections  of  it  acquire  ascendency  over  others, 
is  mainly  an  intellectual    evolution.     We  have  seen 
that  a  people  like  the  Greeks,  who  developed  a  civili- 
sation anterior  to  our  own,  and  long  since  extinct,  are 
held  by  high  authorities  to  have  been  considerably  our 
mental  superiors.     We  have  seen  that,  despite   the 
ascendency   our   own   civilisation  is  winning  in  the 
world  at  the  present  time,  it  is  not  certain  that  intel- 
lectual  development   is   proceeding  pari  passu  with 
social  development  therein,  and  that  it  is  even  prob- 
able that  the  tendency  of  our  civilisation  has  been  to 
restrain  intellectual  development.    We  have  also  seen 
that  anthropologists  are  unable  to  establish  that  clear 
connection  between  social   development  and  cranial 
capacity  that  we  might  have  expected  ;  that  science 
apparently  often  directs  our  attention  to  instances  of 
large  brain  capacity  in  peoples  of  low  social  develop- 
ment.    We  have  seen  that  current  conceptions  of  an 


306  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

immense  intellectual  interval  between  ourselves  and 
races  of  lower  social  development  are  greatly  exag- 
gerated, and  even  to  a  large  extent  fallacious  ;  that 
they  are  not  borne  out  by  the  facts  as  we  find 
them  ;  and  that  they  must  be  held  to  have  origi- 
nated in  the  erroneous  tendency  to  take  as  the 
measure  of  the  mental  development  of  individuals 
belonging  to  the  civilised  races  that  intellectual  in- 
heritance of  civilisation  which  has  been  accumulated 
during  a  long  series  of  generations  in  the  past,  and 
which  is,  strictly  speaking,  only  to  be  taken  as  evi- 
dence of  the  social  efficiency  of  the  races  which  have 
accumulated  it. 

Lastly,  we  have  seen  that  in  the  rivalry  of  nation- 
alities which  is  actually  proceeding  in  our  civilisation, 
existing  facts  do  not  appear  to  point  to  the  conclusion 
that  high  intellectual  development  is  the  most  potent 
factor  in  determining  success.  We  have  seen  that 
certain  qualities,  not  in  themselves  intellectual,  but 
which  contribute  directly  to  social  efficiency,  are 
apparently  of  greater  importance  ;  and  that  in  the 
absence  of  these  qualities  high  intellectual  develop- 
ment may  even  lower  social  efficiency  to  a  dangerous 
degree,  and  so  contribute  to  the  decided  worsting,  in 
the  evolution  which  is  proceeding,  of  the  people  pos- 
sessing it. 

When  all  these  facts  are  now  taken  together,  they 
undoubtedly  tend  to  support,  with  a  very  striking 
class  of  evidence,  a  conclusion  towards  which  we  have 
been  advancing  in  the  preceding  chapters.  It  would 
appear  that  when  man  became  a  social  creature  his 
progress  ceased  to  be  primarily  in  the  direction  of  the 
development  of  his  intellect.      Thenceforward,  in  the 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL      307 

conditions  under  which  natural  selection  has  oper- 
ated, his  interests  as  an  individual  were  no  longer  par- 
amount ;  they  became  subordinate  to  the  distinct  and 
widely-different  interests  of  the  longer-lived  social 
organism  to  which  he  for  the  time  being  belonged. 
The  intellect,  of  course,  continues  to  be  a  most  im- 
portant factor  in  enabling  the  system  to  which  the 
individual  belongs  to  maintain  its  place  in  the  rivalry 
of  life  ;  but  it  is  no  longer  the  prime  factor.  And  it 
continually  tends  to  come  into  conflict  with  those 
larger  evolutionary  forces  which,  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  religious  systems,  are  securing  the  pro- 
gressive subordination  of  the  present  interests  of  the 
self-assertive  individual  to  the  future  interests  of 
society.  The  lesson  of  human  history  appears  to  be 
that  it  is  these  larger  forces  which  are  always  tri- 
umphant. Natural  selection  seems,  in  short,  to  be 
steadily  evolving  in  the  race  that  type  of  character 
upon  which  these  forces  act  most  readily  and  effi- 
ciently ;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  evolving  religious  char- 
acter in  the  first  instance,  and  intellectual  character 
only  as  a  secondary  product  in  association  with  it. 
The  race  would,  in  fact,  appear  to  be  growing  more 
and  more  religious,  the  winning  sections  being  those 
in  which,  cceteris  paribus,  this  type  of  character  is 
most  fully  developed. 

But,  like  all  movements  of  the  kind,  the  evolution 
is  proceeding  very  slowly.  One  after  another,  races 
and  civilisations  appear  to  be  used  up  in  the  process 
as  it  proceeds.  When  the  intellectual  development 
of  any  section  of  the  race  has,  for  the  time  being, 
outrun  its  ethical  development,  natural  selection  has 
apparently  weeded  it  out  like  any  other  unsuitable 


% 


308  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap,  ix 

product.  Regarding  our  social  systems  as  organic 
growths,  there  appears  to  be  a  close  analogy  between 
their  life-history  and  that  of  forms  of  organic  life  in 
general.  We  have,  on  the  one  side,  in  the  ethical 
systems  upon  which  they  are  founded,  the  develop- 
mental force  which  sets  in  motion  that  life-continu- 
ing, constructive  process  which  physiologists  call 
anabolism.  On  the  other  side,  and  in  conflict  with 
it,  we  have  in  the  self-assertive  rationalism  of  the 
individual,  the  tendency  —  by  itself  disintegrating 
and  destructive  —  known  as  katabolism.  In  a  social 
system,  as  in  any  other  organism,  the  downward  stage 
towards  decay  is  probably  commenced  when  the  kata- 
bolic  tendency  begins  to  progressively  overbalance 
the  anabolic  tendency. 

A  preponderating  element  in  the  type  of  character 
which  the  evolutionary  forces  at  work  in  human 
society  are  slowly  developing,  would  appear  to  be 
the  sense  of  reverence.  The  qualities  with  which  it 
is  tending  to  be  closely  allied  are,  great  mental 
energy,  resolution,  enterprise,  powers  of  prolonged 
and  concentrated  application,  and  a  sense  of  simple- 
minded  and  single-minded  devotion  to  conceptions  of 
duty. 


CHAPTER   X 

CONCLUDING   REMARKS 

It  seems  likely,  when  the  application  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  evolutionary  science  to  history  comes  to  be 
fully  understood,  that  we  shall  have  to  witness  almost 
as  great  a  revolution  in  those  departments  of  knowl- 
edge which  deal  with  man  in  society  as  we  have 
already  seen  taking  place  in  the  entire  realm  of  the 
lower  organic  sciences  through  the  development  and 
general  application,  during  the  latter  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  of  the  biological  theories  enunciated 
by  Darwin.  It  is  evident  that  we  are  approaching  a 
period  when  we  shall  no  longer  have  the  same  justi- 
fication as  in  the  past  for  regarding  human  history  as 
a  bewildering  exception  to  the  reign  of  universal  law 
—  a  kind  of  solitary  and  mysterious  island  in  the 
midst  of  the  cosmos  given  over  to  a  strife  of  forces 
without  clue  or  meaning.  Despite  the  complexity  of 
the  problems  encountered  in  history,  we  seem  to 
have  everywhere  presented  to  us  systematic  devel- 
opment underlying  apparent  confusion.  In  all  the 
phases  and  incidents  of  our  social  annals  we  are 
apparently  regarding  only  the  intimately  related 
phenomena  of  a  single,  vast,  orderly  process  of  evolu- 
tion. 

If  the  explanation  of  the  principles  governing  the 
evolution  of  society  which  has  been  given  in  the  pre- 

309 


310  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

ceding  chapters  is  in  the  main  correct,  these  prin- 
ciples must  have  an  application  far  too  wide  to  be 
adequately  discussed  within  the  limits  to  which  it  is 
proposed  to  confine  this  book.  It  has  been  no  part 
of  the  aim  of  the  writer,  in  the  task  he  has  under- 
taken, to  treat  the  subject  in  its  relations  to  that 
wider  field  of  philosophical  inquiry  of  which  it  forms 
a  province.  It  only  remains  now  to  deal  with  a  few 
matters  directly  arising  out  of  the  argument  so  far  as 
it  has  proceeded. 

Emphasis  has  been  laid  throughout  the  preceding 
pages  on  the  necessity  for  a  clear  and  early  recogni- 
tion of  the  inherent  and  inevitable  antagonism  exist- 
ing in  human  society  between  the  interests  of  the 
individual,  necessarily  concerned  with  his  own  wel- 
fare, and  the  interests  of  the  social  organism,  largely 
bound  up  with  the  welfare  of  generations  yet  unborn. 
The  fundamental  conception  underlying  the  reason- 
ing of  that  hitherto  predominant  school  of  thought 
which  has  sought  to  establish  in  the  nature  of  things 
a  rationalistic  sanction  for  individual  conduct,  has 
always  been  that  the  interests  of  the  individual  either 
already  are,  or  are  immediately  tending  to  become, 
coincident  with  the  interests  of  society  as  a  whole. 
The  principles  of  this  Utilitarian  school  have  come 
down  to  us  through  Hobbes  and  Locke,  and  have 
been  developed  by  a  large  and  distinguished  group 
of  philosophical  writers,  amongst  the  more  influential 
of  whom  must  be  counted  Hume,  Jeremy  Bentham, 
and  the  two  Mills.  They  will,  in  the  future,  not 
improbably  be  recognised  to  have  received  their 
truest  scientific  expression  in  the  Synthetic  Philoso- 
phy of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.     There  can  be  no  mis- 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  311 

taking  the  central  conception  of  this  school.  The 
iplea  of  the  identification  of  the  interests  of  the  indi- 
vidual with  those  of  society,  as  a  whole,  has  been 
brought  into  ever-increasing  prominence.  The  key 
to  the  political  system  of  Bentham  was  expressed  in 
a  single  phrase  of  Priestley's  —  "  the  greatest  happi- 
ness of  the  greatest  number" — long  a  prominent 
doctrine  in  English  politics.  In  John  Stuart  Mill's 
writings  this  conception  of  the  identity  of  the  two 
classes  of  interests  found  constant  and  clear  expres- 
sion. He  insisted,  as  a  means  of  making  the  nearest 
approach  to  the  perfection  of  Utilitarian  morality, 
that  "utility  would  enjoin  that  laws  and  social  ar- 
rangements should  place  the  happiness  or  (as  speak- 
ing practically  it  may  be  called)  the  interests  of  every 
individual  as  nearly  as  possible  in  harmony  with  the 
interest  of  the  whole."  a  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has 
attempted  to  develop  the  position  a  stage  further, 
and  to  establish  it  on  a  scientific  foundation.  In  his 
Data  of  Ethics  he  professes  to  see,  in  the  process  of 
social  evolution  going  on  around  us,  a  conciliation 
taking  place  "  between  the  interests  of  each  citizen 
and  the  interests  of  citizens  at  large,  tending  ever 
towards  a  state  in  which  the  two  become  merged  in 
one,  and  in  which  the  feelings  answering  to  them 
respectively  fall  into  complete  concord."2 

It  would  appear  that  we  must  reject  this  concep- 
tion as  being  inconsistent  with  the  teaching  of  evolu- 
tionary science.  The  forces  which  are  at  work  in 
the  evolution  of  society  are  certainly,  on  the  whole, 
working  out  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number 

1  Utilitarianism,  by  J.  S.  Mill,  p.  25. 

2  Data  of  Ethics,  by  Herbert  Spencer,  p.  243. 


312  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

in  a  progressive  community.  But  the  earlier  utilita- 
rian conception  of  the  greatest  number  has  always 
related  merely  to  the  majority  of  the  existing  mem- 
bers of  society  at  any  time.  The  greatest  good 
which  the  evolutionary  forces,  operating  in  society, 
are  working  out,  is  the  good  of  the  social  organism 
as  a  whole.  The  greatest  number  in  this  sense  is  com- 
prised of  the  members  of  generations  yet  unborn  or 
unthonght  of  to  whose  interests  the  existing  indi- 
viduals are  absolutely  indifferent.  And,  in  the  pro- 
cess of  social  evolution  which  the  race  is  undergoing, 
it  is  these  latter  interests  which  are  always  in  the 
ascendant. 

There  cannot,  it  would  appear,  be  found  in  Dar- 
winian science,  as  it  is  now  understood,  any  warrant 
for  anticipating  the  arrival  of  that  state  of  society 
contemplated  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  The  author 
of  the  Synthetic  Philosophy  had  in  view  a  state  of 
things  in  which  the  antagonism  between  societies 
having  entirely  ceased  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  con- 
ciliation between  the  interests  of  the  individual  and 
those  of  the  social  organism  having  been  perfectly 
attained  to  on  the  other,  the  individual  also  will  have 
reached  a  stage  of  development  in  which  it  will  afford 
him  the  highest  pleasure  to  act  in  a  manner  condu- 
cive to  the  good  of  the  social  organism,  and  this  even 
where  such  conduct  is,  to  all  appearance,  directly 
antagonistic  to  his  own  material  interests — just  as  at 
present  the  highest  happiness  is  often  obtained  in 
parental  sacrifice.  This  altruistic  instinct  may,  in 
fact,  according  to  Mr.  Spencer,  "  be  expected  to 
attain  a  level  at  which  it  will  be  like  parental  altruism 
in  spontaneity,"  and  so  lead  the  individual  to  obtain 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  313 

the  highest  of  all  satisfactions  in  voluntarily  sacrific- 
ing himself  in  the  interests  of  the  social  organism.1 

By  this  conception  of  an  ideal  social  state,  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  must  mean  one  of  two  things.  Let 
us  take  each  separately.  If  he  imagined,  as  the  older 
utilitarians  apparently  did  imagine,  a  conciliation  of 
the  interests  of  the  individual  and  those  of  society 
taking  place  with  human  nature  exactly  as  it  is,  but 
under  a  different  organisation  of  society  to  that  now 
prevailing,  then  he  is  at  one  with  certain  socialist 
reformers  of  the  time.  Nothing  more  is  necessary  to 
bring  about  such  a  state  of  society  than  to  draw  a 
ring  fence  round  our  borders,  to  suspend  the  competi- 
tive forces,  to  organise  society  on  a  socialist  basis, 
and  in  future  to  regulate  the  population  strictly 
according  to  the  conditions  of  existence  for  the  time 
being.  Conduct  contributing  to  the  present  welfare 
of  society  in  such  a  community  would  be  but  that 
dictated  by  "enlightened  self-interest"  in  the  in- 
dividuals ;  and  the  conciliation  of  interests  would  be, 
as  far  as  possible,  complete.  We  have  already  dealt 
with  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  a  society  in 
the  chapter  on  socialism.  But  the  evolutionist  who 
has  perceived  the  application  of  that  development 
which  the  Darwinian  law  of  Natural  Selection  has 
undergone  in  the  hands  of  Weismann,  is  precluded 
at  the  outset  from  contemplating  the  continued  suc- 
cess of  such  a  society.  The  evolutionist  who  has 
once  realised  the  significance  of  the  supreme  fact  up 
to  which  biology  has  slowly  advanced, —  namely,  that 
every  quality  of  life  can  be  kept  in  a  state  of  efficiency 
and  prevented  from  retrograding  only  by  the  con- 

1  Vide  Data  of  Ethics,  chap.  xiv. 


314  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

tinued  and  never-relaxed  stress  of  selection  —  simply 
finds  it  impossible  to  conceive  a  society  permanently 
existing  in  this  state.  He  can  only  think  of  it  exist- 
ing at  all  on  one  condition  —  in  the  first  stage  of  a 
period  of  progressive  degeneration. 

But  it  may  be  replied  on  behalf  of  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  that  he  has  advanced  beyond  this  position, 
that  such  an  argument,  however  applicable  to  the 
views  of  some  of  the  older  utilitarians,  and  to  some 
of  the  prevailing  socialist  theories  of  society,  does 
not  reach  his  position.  For  he  does,  it  may  be  said, 
contemplate  the  necessary  sacrifice  of  the  interests 
of  the  individual  to  those  of  the  social  organism  which 
the  conditions  of  evolution  require.  Only  the  indi- 
vidual will  be  so  constituted  that  this  sacrifice  will 
be  made  spontaneously.  He  will  obtain  the  highest 
satisfaction  and  happiness  in  making  it.  His  char- 
acter will,  in  fact,  have  undergone  so  profound  a 
modification  that  this  social  altruism  "may  be  ex- 
pected to  attain  a  level  at  which  it  will  be  like 
parental  altruism  in  spontaneity."  Let  us  deal  with 
this  modified  view. 

The  deficiency  in  Mr.  Spencer's  reasoning  here  is 
the  same  deficiency  which  to  a  large  extent  pervades 
the  whole  of  his  synthetic  philosophy  in  its  applica- 
tion to  our  social  phenomena.  He  has  never  realised 
the  nature  of  the  essential  difference  which  distin- 
guishes human  evolution  from  all  other  evolution 
whatsoever :  namely,  the  existence  therein  of  the 
factor  of  individual  reason.  He  has,  therefore,  not 
perceived  that  while  our  evolution  is  in  the  first  place 
pre-eminently  a  social  evolution,  the  most  profoundly 
individualistic,  anti-social,  and  anti-evolutionary  of  all 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  315 

human  qualities  is  one  which,  other  things  being 
equal,  tends  to  be  progressively  developed  in  the 
race,  namely,  reason.  He  has,  accordingly,  never 
realised  that  the  central  feature  of  our  evolution  has 
always  been  the  supreme  struggle  in  which  the  con- 
trol of  this  disintegrating  influence  is  being  continu- 
ally effected  in  the  interest  of  society  first,  and  of  the 
race  in  the  next  place ;  and  that  the  function  of  that 
immense  and  characteristic  class  of  social  phenomena 
which  we  have  in  our  religious  systems,  is  to  secure 
this  necessary  subordination  of  the  present  interests 
of  the  self-assertive  individual  to  the  general  interests 
of  the  process  of  evolution  which  is  in  progress.  To 
expect  the  subordination  —  in  the  manner  contem- 
plated by  Mr.  Spencer  —  of  that  feeling  in  the  in- 
dividual which  prompts  him  to  consider  his  own 
interests  first  to  a  feeling  leading  him  to  sacrifice 
these  interests  to  further  a  process  of  evolution  with 
which  he  has  no  concern,  is  to  ignore  facts  and  condi- 
tions around  us,  the  meaning  of  which  is  unmistakable. 
For  it  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  any  altruistic 
feeling  of  this  kind  which  could  exceed  in  strength 
the  parental  instinct.  Yet  one  of  the  plainest  facts 
of  our  time  and  of  past  history  is  the  perversion  of 
this  instinct  under  the  influence  of  rationalism,  and 
the  suspension  of  its  operation  in  furthering  the 
evolution  the  race  is  undergoing.  We  have  discus- 
sions proceeding  in  the  literature  of  the  time  in  which 
rationalism  points  out  with  reiterated  emphasis  that 
"  there  is  something  pathetically  absurd  in  this  sacri- 
fice to  their  children  of  generation  after  generation 
of  grown  people."  !     No  observant  person  who  has 

1  Mrs.  Mona  Caird,  Nineteenth  Century,  May  1892. 


316  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

watched  the  signs  of  the  times  can  have  the  least 
doubt  that  in  a  state  of  unrestricted  rationalism  the 
institution  of  marriage  and  the  family  would  undergo 
modifications  incompatible  with  the  continuance  of 
that  process  of  evolution  with  which  the  interests 
of  the  race  are  bound  up.  We  have  unmistakable 
evidence  of  the  perversion  of  the  parental  feelings 
amongst  the  Greeks  and  Romans  and  other  peoples 
under  rationalistic  influences.1  And  we  have  at  the 
present  day  that  striking  example  referred  to  in  the 
last  chapter,  of  the  perversion  under  similar  circum- 
stances of  these  feelings  amongst  the  most  brilliant 
and  able  race  amongst  the  European  peoples,  and  the 
consequent  failure  of  that  race  to  maintain  its  place 
amongst  others  in  the  evolution  which  is  proceeding 
under  our  eyes  in  the  civilisation  in  which  we  are 
living. 

Yet  these  parental  instincts  which  give  way  thus 
before  rationalism  have  an  accumulated  strength 
behind  them  dating  back  to  the  beginning  of  life, 
developed,  as  they  have  been,  through  all  those 
countless  aeons  of  time  through  which  we  rise  from 
the  lowest  organisms  upwards  to  man.     To  antici- 

1  Speaking  of  the  decay  of  the  Athenian  people,  Mr.  Francis  Galton 
says,  "  We  know,  and  may  guess  something  more,  of  the  reason  why 
this  marvellously-gifted  race  declined.  Social  morality  grew  exceed- 
ingly lax;  marriage  became  unfashionable  and  was  avoided;  many  of 
the  more  ambitious  and  accomplished  women  were  avowed  courtesans, 
and  consequently  infertile,  and  the  mothers  of  the  incoming  population 
were  of  a  heterogeneous  class"  {Hereditary  Genius,  p.  331).  The 
same  state  of  popular  feeling  with  respect  to  marriage  prevailed  during 
the  decline  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  courtesans  were  raised,  says 
Mr.  Lecky,  "  in  popular  estimation  to  an  unexampled  elevation  "  and 
"  aversion  to  marriage  became  very  general." 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  317 

pate,  as  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  done,  the  develop- 
ment, during  the  infinitesimal  length  of  any  period 
of  human  evolution,  of  a  feeling  or  instinct  of  a 
similar  kind,  but  of  sufficient  strength  to  do  what 
the  parental  feelings  already  fail  to  do,  is  to  alto- 
gether misunderstand  the  nature  of  the  charac- 
teristic problem  human  evolution  presents,  and 
consequently  to  misinterpret  some  of  the  plainest 
facts  of  the  times  in  which  we  are  living,  and  of  the 
history  of  the  race  in  the  past. 

It  would  appear  that  the  teaching  of  evolutionary 
science  as  applied  to  society  is  that  there  is  only  one 
way  in  which  the  rationalistic  factor  in  human  evo- 
lution can  be  controlled ;  namely,  through  the  in- 
strumentality of  religious  systems.  These  systems 
constitute  the  absolutely  characteristic  feature  of  our 
evolution,  the  necessary  and  inevitable  complement 
of  our  reason.  It  is  under  the  influence  of  these 
systems  that  the  evolution  of  the  race  is  proceeding ; 
it  is  in  connection  with  these  systems  that  we  must 
study  the  laws  which  regulate  the  character,  growth, 
and  decay  of  societies  and  civilisations.  It  is  along 
the  ever-advancing  or  retreating  frontiers  where  they 
encounter  each  other  that  we  have  some  of  the  most 
striking  effects  that  natural  selection  is  producing 
on  the  race.  It  is  within  their  borders  that  we  wit- 
ness the  process  by  which  the  eternal  forces  that  are 
working  out  the  destiny  of  the  race  are  continually 
effecting  the  subordination  of  the  interests  of  suc- 
cessive generations  of  men  to  those  larger  interests 
to  which  the  individual  is  indifferent,  and  of  which 
he  has  only  very  feeble  power  to  realise  either  the 
nature  or  the  magnitude. 


318  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

We  have  seen  in  the  previous  chapters  that  the 
process  of  evolution  enfolding  itself  in  our  civilisa- 
tion has  consisted  essentially  in  the  slow  disintegra- 
tion of  that  military  type  of  society  which  attained 
its  highest  development  in  a  social  stage  in  which 
the  greater  part  of  the  people  were  excluded  from 
participating  in  the  rivalry  of  existence  on  terms  of 
equality,  and  in  which  their  lives  were  continuously 
exploited  for  the  exclusive  benefit  of  a  comparatively 
small  privileged  and  power-holding  class.  The  his- 
tory of  the  modern  world  we  have  observed  to  be 
simply  the  history  of  the  process  of  development 
that,  having  undermined  the  position  of  these  power- 
holding  classes,  emancipated  the  individual,  and  en- 
franchised the  people,  is  now  tending  to  bring,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  race,  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  community  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  a 
footing  of  equality  of  opportunity.  This  is  the  move- 
ment which  has  raised  our  Western  civilisation  to 
the  place  it  now  occupies  in  the  world,  and  all  the 
social  and  political  movements  in  progress  in  every 
country  where  it  prevails  are  but  aspects  of  it. 

Now  while  the  import  in  this  process  of  develop- 
ment of  the  movement  known  as  the  Reformation  has 
been  already  referred  to,  the  exact  manner  in  which 
this  movement  has  influenced  and  is  still  influencing 
our  social  and  political  development  is  seldom  clearly 
perceived.  That  the  effects  on  national  character  of 
the  religious  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  have 
been  important  is  already  fully  recognised  by  stu- 
dents of  social  phenomena.  Thus  we  find  Professor 
Marshall,  in  his  Principles  of  Economics,  recently  lay- 
ing stress  on  the  economic  significance  of  the  change 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  319 

which  it  produced  in  the  English  character.  Its  doc- 
trines, he  says,  deepened  the  character  of  the  people, 
"  reacted  on  their  habits  of  life,  and  gave  a  tone  to 
their  industry."  Family  life  was  intensified,  so  much 
so,  that  "  the  family  relations  of  those  races  which 
have  adopted  the  reformed  religion  are  the  richest 
and  fullest  of  earthly  feeling  ;  there  never  has  been 
before  any  material  of  texture  at  once  so  strong  and 
so  fine  with  which  to  build  up  a  noble  fabric  of  social 
life."1 

The  character  of  the  people  had,  in  fact,  not  only 
been  deepened  and  strengthened,  it  had  been  softened 
to  an  extent  hitherto  unknown.  It  is  probable  that 
the  changes  in  doctrine  which  had  principally  con- 
tributed to  produce  this  result  were  those  which  had 
tended  to  bring  the  individual  into  more  intimate  con- 
tact with  the  actual  life  and  example  of  the  Founder 
of  Christianity,  and  therefore  with  the  essential  spirit 
that  underlay  our  religious  system  and  served  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  all  other  systems.  As  has  been  fre- 
quently correctly  pointed  out,  the  characteristic  feature 
of  Latin  Christianity  was  different.  This  form  has 
always  tended,  as  it  still  tends,  to  treat  as  of  the  first 
importance,  not  the  resulting  change  in  character  in 
the  individual,  but  rather  his  belief  in  the  authority 
of  the  Church  and  of  an  order  of  men,  and  in  the 
supreme  efficacy  of  sacramental  ordinances  which 
the  Church  has  decreed  itself  alone  competent  to 
dispense.  On  the  other  hand,  the  central  idea  of  the 
Reformation  was  the  necessity  for  a  spiritual  change 
in  the  individual,  and  the  recognition,  in  virtue 
thereof,  of   the   priesthood  in  his  own  person.     As 

1  Vide  Principles  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  pp.  34,  35. 


320  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

Professor  Marshall  states,  "Man  was,  as  it  were, 
ushered  straight  into  the  presence  of  his  Creator  with 
no  human  intermediary ;  life  became  intense  and  full 
of  awe,  and  now  for  the  first  time  large  numbers  of 
rude  and  uncultured  people  yearned  towards  the  mys- 
teries of  absolute  spiritual  freedom.  The  isolation 
of  each  person's  religious  responsibility  from  that  of 
his  fellows  rightly  understood  was  a  necessary  condi- 
tion for  the  highest  spiritual  progress."  *  Thus,  on 
the  one  hand,  individual  character  tended  to  be 
greatly  strengthened  by  the  isolation  of  individual 
responsibility,  and  on  the  other,  to  be  deepened  and 
softened  by  being  brought  into  close  and  intimate 
contact  with  those  wonderfully  moving  and  impressive 
altruistic  ideals  which  we  have  in  the  simple  story  of 
the  life  and  acts  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity. 

The  resulting  difference  in  character,  which  may 
mean  much  or  little  in  theological  controversy  accord- 
ing to  the  standpoint  of  the  observer,  assumes,  how- 
ever, profound  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  student 
of  our  social  evolution.  The  fact  must  be  kept  in 
view,  which  has  been  throughout  insisted  on,  that  it 
is  this  softening  and  deepening  of  character,  with  the 
accompanying  release  into  our  social  life  of  an  im- 
mense and  all-pervading  fund  of  altruistic  feeling, 
which  has  provided  the  real  motive  force  behind  the 
whole  onward  movement  with  which  our  age  is  iden- 
tified. It  may  be  noticed,  consequently,  how  much 
farther  the  development  of  the  humanitarian  feelings 
has  progressed  in  those  parts  of  our  civilisation  most 
affected  by  the  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  more  particularly  amongst  the  Anglo-Saxon  peo- 

1  Principles  of  Economics y  vol.  i.  p.  34. 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  321 

pies.  That  great  wave  of  altruistic  feeling  which 
caused  the  crusade  against  slavery  to  attain  such  re- 
markable development  amongst  these  peoples  has  pro- 
gressed onward,  carrying  on  its  crest  the  multitude 
of  philanthropic  and  humanitarian  undertakings  which 
are  so  characteristic  a  feature  of  all  English-speaking 
communities,  and  such  little-understood  movements 
as  anti-vivisection,  vegetarianism,  the  enfranchisement 
of  women,  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals,  and 
the  abolition  of  state  regulation  of  vice.  It  is  in  these 
that  we  have  the  outward  appearances  which  mark 
the  nature  of  the  larger  impetus  which,  amongst  these 
peoples,  is  behind  that  social  and  political  movement 
which  has  gradually  enfranchised  and  uplifted  the 
people,  and  which  is  now  steadily  tending  to  bring 
them  all  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  conditions  of 
equality. 

Now,  Mr.  Lecky  has  recently  said  that  there  is 
probably  no  better  test  of  the  political  genius  of  a 
nation  than  the  power  it  possesses  of  adapting  old 
institutions  to  new  wants,  and  he  finds  the  English 
people  pre-eminent  in  this  characteristic.1  There  can 
be  little  doubt,  however,  that  the  quality  here  called 
political  genius,  which  is  undoubtedly,  on  the  whole, 
characteristic  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  has  its 
roots,  in  this  instance,  in  causes  intimately  and  di- 
rectly associated  with  the  exceptional  development 
which  the  altruistic  feelings  have  attained  amongst 
these  peoples  as  the  result  of  the  causes  mentioned. 
We  have,  therein,  one  of  the  clearest  examples  of  how 
profoundly  the  social  development  of  particular  peo- 
ples has  been  influenced  by  the    course  which  the 

1  The  Political  Value  of  History,  1892. 
Y 


322  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

ethical  movement  on  which  our  civilisation  is  founded 
has  taken  amongst  them. 

In  England,  where  the  religious  movement  of  the 
sixteenth  century  proceeded  with  little  interruption, 
it  has  been  noticed  that  the  most  significant  feature 
of  the  process  of  social  development  in  which  the 
power-holding  classes  are  in  full  conscious  retreat 
before  the  incoming  people  is,  that  these  classes  are 
themselves  deeply  affected  by  the  softening  influences 
of  the  time.  All  classes  of  society  have  become  sen- 
sitive in  a  high  degree  to  the  sight  of  suffering  or 
wrong  of  any  kind.  The  effect  on  the  power-holding 
classes  is  to  take  away  their  faith  in  their  own  cause. 
With  all  the  enormous  latent  strength  of  their  posi- 
tion these  classes  do  not  make,  and  either  consciously 
or  unconsciously  realise  that  they  cannot  make,  any 
effective  resistance  to  the  onward  movement  which  is 
gradually  uplifting  the  people  at  their  expense.  The 
best  of  them  are,  in  fact,  either  openly  or  in  their 
hearts  on  the  side  of  the  people,  and  the  only  fighting 
policy  of  the  party  is  consequently  one  of  temporising 
defence. 

The  practical  consequence  is  of  great  significance. 
It  is  that  the  development  in  which  the  excluded 
masses  of  the  people  are  being  brought  into  the  com- 
petition of  life  on  a  footing  of  equality  of  opportunity 
is  proceeding,  and  will  apparently  continue  to  pro- 
ceed in  Great  Britain,  not  by  the  violent  stages  of 
revolution,  but  as  a  gradual  and  orderly  process  of 
social  change.  The  power-holding  classes  are  in  re- 
treat before  the  people ;  but  the  retreat  on  the  one 
side  is  orderly  and  unbroken,  while  the  advance  on 
the  other  is  the  steady,  unhastening,  onward  move- 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  323 

ment  of  a  party  conscious  of  the  strength  and  recti- 
tude of  its  cause,  and  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  final  issue. 
There  is,  consequently,  no  deep-seated  bitterness  on 
either  side.  Both  opponents,  still  respecting  each 
other,  recognise  as  it  were  the  ultimate  issue  of  the 
battle.  The  great  process  is  proceeding  as  a  natural 
and  orderly  development  —  we  are  adapting  the  old 
institutions  to  the  new  wants.  This  is  the  real  secret 
of  that  political  genius  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples  are 
now  displaying,  and  there  is  scarcely  any  other  quality 
which  promises  to  stand  them  in  such  good  stead  in 
that  great  social  revolution  with  which  the  history  of 
the  twentieth  century  will  be  filled. 

But  when  we  turn  to  those  peoples  amongst  whom 
the  religious  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
interrupted  or  suppressed,  and  amongst  whom  the 
Latin  form  of  Christianity  prevails,  we  find  that  the 
situation  is  not  exactly  the  same.  Amongst  these 
people  the  idea  of  the  innate  equality  of  all  men,  with 
the  consequent  conception  of  the  fundamental  right 
of  all  to  equal  opportunities  which  is  the  peculiar  prod- 
uct of  the  ethical  system  on  which  our  civilisation 
is  founded,  has  practically  reached  the  same  develop- 
ment as  elsewhere.  But  the  profound  change  in  social 
character  which  has  accompanied  this  development, 
amongst  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples  for  instance,  has 
not  proceeded  so  far.  The  deepening  of  individual 
character,  resulting  in  a  certain  inbred  sense  of  integ- 
rity which  has  rendered  the  sense  of  wrong  intoler- 
able, and  the  softening  process  which  has  made  the 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples  so  sensitive  to  the  sight  of 
misery  or  suffering,  have  not  progressed  to  the  same 
extent. 


324  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

In  practice  this  is  a  difference  of  great  importance. 
The  two  great  opposing  parties  in  the  process  of 
social  development  that  is  proceeding,  —  namely,  the 
Power-holding  classes  and  the  People,  the  Haves  and 
the  Have-nots,  —  confront  each  other  in  a  different 
spirit.  The  struggle,  amongst  the  peoples  who  have 
not  been  so  deeply  affected  by  the  humanitarian 
movement,  tends  to  become  more  a  selfish  trial  of 
strength  in  which  each  party  is  determinedly  and 
bitterly  fighting  for  its  own  material  interests,  and  in 
which  the  issue  swings,  according  to  the  relative 
strength  of  the  opponents,  between  successful  resist- 
ance on  the  one  hand  and  successful  revolution  on 
the  other.  Either  result  is  almost  equally  dangerous. 
With  successful  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  power- 
holding  classes  we  have  stagnation  and  interrupted 
development ;  with  successful  revolution  on  the  part 
of  the  people  we  have  irregular  and  uncertain  prog- 
ress. We  have  examples  of  either  one  or  the  other 
of  these  results  amongst  the  European  nations  that 
have  not  been  affected  by  the  religious  development 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  victory  naturally  tends 
to  be  with  the  people ;  but  the  cost  of  successful 
revolution  in  such  conditions  is  great.  For,  as  has 
been  recently  pointed  out  with  truth  and  insight, 
"few  greater  calamities  can  befall  a  nation  than  to 
cut  herself  off,  as  France  (in  these  circumstances)  has 
done  in  her  great  revolution,  from  all  vital  connection 
with  her  own  past."  1  As  our  civilisation,  as  a  whole, 
must  be  regarded  as  the  unfolding  of  a  process  of  life, 
so  —  as  will  not  improbably  be  recognised  with  grow- 
ing   clearness   in  the  future  —  those  sections    of   it 

1  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  The  Political  Value  of  History. 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  325 

which  have  remained  unaffected  by  the  great  natural 
development  which  the  ethical  system  upon  which  it 
is  founded  underwent  in  the  sixteenth  century  — 
wherein,  beyond  doubt,  a  profound  social  instinct 
found  expression  —  will  lack  certain  well-marked  char- 
acteristics, possessing  a  high  value  in  the  process  of 
social  evolution  which  is  still  proceeding.  It  is  to 
be  doubted  whether  the  peoples  who,  in  suppress- 
ing the  religious  development  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, succeeded  in  preserving  the  outward  forms  of 
ecclesiastical  unity,  will  be  so  successful  in  ultimately 
preserving  the  essential  spirit  of  Christianity  as  those 
amongst  whom  the  development  was  allowed  to  pur- 
sue its  natural  course.  Amongst  the  former  peoples 
the  subsequent  movements  of  opinion  have  unmis- 
takably been  direct  to  rationalism.  It  is  apparently 
amongst  the  latter  peoples  that  the  social  transforma- 
tion, which  our  civilisation  is  destined  to  accomplish, 
will  reach  its  most  successful  expression  and  proceed 
thereto  by  the  most  regular  and  orderly  stages. 

In  any  forecast  of  the  future  of  our  civilisation, 
one  of  the  most  important  of  the  questions  presenting 
themselves  for  consideration,  is  that  of  the  future 
relationship  of  the  European  peoples  to  what  are 
called  the  lower  races.  Probably  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  features  of  the  world-wide  expansion  the 
European  peoples  are  undergoing  will  be  the  change 
that  this  relationship  is  destined  to  undergo  in 
the  near  future.  In  estimates  which  have  been 
hitherto  made  of  our  coming  relations  to  the  coloured 
races,  a  factor  which  will  in  all  probability  completely 
dominate  the  situation  in  the  future  has  received 
scarcely  any  attention. 


326  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

The  relationships  of  the  Western  peoples  to  the 
inferior  races,  with  which  they  have  come  into  con- 
tact in  the  course  of  the  expansion  they  have  under- 
gone, is  one  of  the  most  interesting  subjects  in 
history.  Confused  though  these  relationships  may 
appear,  it  may  be  distinguished  that  they  have  passed 
through  certain  well-marked  stages  of  development. 
We  must  set  aside,  as  being  outside  our  present  field 
of  vision,  those  races  which  have  inhabited  countries 
suitable  for  European  colonisation.  The  fate  of  all 
races  occupying  territories  of  this  kind  has  been 
identical.  Whether  wars  of  extermination  have  been 
waged  against  them,  or  whether  they  have  been  well 
treated  and  admitted  to  citizenship,  they  have  always 
tended  to  disappear  before  the  more  vigorous  incom- 
ing race.  It  is  with  the  inhabitants  of  regions  un- 
suitable for  European  settlement,  and  mostly  outside 
the  temperate  zone,  that  we  are  concerned. 

The  alteration  observable  in  our  relations  to  these 
races  since  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
has  been  very  gradual,  but  its  general  character  is 
unmistakable.  During  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth, 
and  eighteenth  centuries,  a  great  part  of  the  richest 
regions  in  the  tropical  countries  of  the  earth  passed 
under  the  dominion  of  the  four  great  sea  powers  of 
Western  Europe  —  Spain,  Holland,  France,  and  Eng- 
land have  successively  engaged  in  the  keenest  rivalry 
for  the  possession  of  vast  regions  of  this  kind,  unsuit- 
able for  permanent  colonisation,  but  possessing  rich 
natural  resources.  The  general  idea  which  lay  behind 
this  extension  of  dominion  was  in  the  main  that  of  mili- 
tary conquest.  The  territories  of  the  weaker  peoples 
were  invaded,  taken  possession  of,  and  exploited  for 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  327 

the  benefit  of  the  more  vigorous  invader.  The  inter- 
ests of  the  original  occupiers  were  little,  if  at  all, 
regarded.  The  main  end  in  view  was  the  immediate 
profit  and  advantage  of  the  conquerers.  In  the  West 
India  Islands  the  native  population  was  worked  in  the 
mines  and  the  plantations  until  it  became  in  great 
part  extinct,  and  the  Spaniards  began  to  introduce 
negroes  from  Africa.  Operations  were  conducted  on 
so  great  a  scale  that  in  the  20  years  before  the  open- 
ing of  the  eighteenth  century  300,000  slaves  were 
exported  from  Africa  by  the  English,  and  in  the  80 
years  which  followed,  over  600,000  slaves  were  landed 
in  the  Island  of  Jamaica  alone.  Slave  labour  was 
employed  to  an  enormous  extent  in  most  of  the  coun- 
tries of  which  possession  was  obtained.  The  natural 
resources  of  the  territories  occupied  were,  however, 
developed  to  a  considerable  degree.  The  enormous 
wealth  which  Spain  drew  from  her  conquests  and 
undertakings  in  tropical  America  was  long  a  very 
powerful  factor  in  the  wars  and  politics  of  Europe  : 
Holland,  France,  and  England  also  enriched  them- 
selves both  directly  and  indirectly.  In  the  Spanish, 
Dutch,  and  English  settlements  and  plantations  in 
the  Eastern  Hemisphere,  and  in  those  in  the  West 
Indies  and  South  America,  under  Spanish,  Dutch, 
French,  and  English  rule,  great  enterprises  in  trade, 
agriculture,  and  mining  were  successfully  undertaken. 
Order  and  government  were  introduced,  and  large 
cities  sprung  up  rivalling  European  cities  in  size  and 
magnificence.  This  first  period  was  one  of  feverish 
activity,  and  of  universal  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
invaders  to  quickly  enrich  themselves.  There  was 
much  cruelty  to  weaker  races,  and  although  all  the 


328  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

powers  were  not  equally  guilty  in  this  respect,  none, 
at  least,  were  innocent.  But  looking  at  the  period 
as  a  whole,  and  regarding  the  enterprises  undertaken 
in  their  true  light — namely,  as  an  attempt  to  develop, 
by  forced  coloured  labour  under  European  supervision, 
the  resources  of  countries  not  suitable  for  European 
settlement  —  a  certain  degree  of  success  must  be 
admitted  to  have  been  attained,  and  the  enterprises 
undoubtedly  contributed  to  increase,  for  the  time  be- 
ing, the  material  wealth  and  resources  of  the  powers 
concerned. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
tendency  of  the  change  that  was  taking  place  began 
to  be  visible.  It  had  become  clear  that  the  European 
peoples  could  not  hope  to  settle  permanently  in  the 
tropical  lands  they  had  occupied,  and  that,  if  the  re- 
sources were  to  be  developed,  it  must  be  by  native 
labour  under  their  supervision.  Already,  however, 
the  effects  of  the  altruistic  development  which  had 
been  so  long  in  progress  were  becoming  generally 
evident,  and  before  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth 
century  men  had  glimpses  of  the  nature  of  the  social 
revolution  it  was  eventually  to  accomplish  in  our  civ- 
ilisation. The  institution  of  slavery  in  tropical  lands 
under  European  auspices  was  clearly  doomed.  So 
also,  to  the  more  far-reaching  minds,  seemed  another 
institution  upon  which  depended,  to  all  appearance, 
the  continued  maintenance  of  European  enterprise 
and  European  authority  in  lands  not  suitable  for  the 
permanent  settlement  of  the  Western  races. 

The  right  of  occupation  and  government  in  virtue 
of  conquest  or  force  tended,  it  was  felt,  to  become  an 
anachronism  ;  it  was  antagonistic  to,  and  it  involved 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  329 

a  denial  of,  the  spirit  which  constituted  the  mainspring 
of  that  onward  movement  which  was  taking  place  in 
our  civilisation,  and  which  was  slowly  bringing  the 
people  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  conditions  of  equal- 
ity. Although  almost  every  European  people,  that  had 
attained  to  any  consciousness  of  national  strength, 
had  in  the  past  endeavoured  to  imitate  the  military 
ideals  of  the  ancient  empires,  and  to  extend  their 
rule  by  conquest  over  other  peoples  of  equal  civilisa- 
tion, they  had  done  so  with  ever-diminishing  success. 
The  growth  of  influences  and  conditions  tending  to 
render  the  realisation  of  such  aims  more  and  more 
difficult  was  unmistakable.  Any  nation  which  would 
embark  upon  such  an  enterprise,  on  a  great  scale  and 
against  a  European  people,  would,  it  was  felt,  find  in 
the  near  future,  forces  arrayed  against  it  of  which  the 
ancient  world  had  no  experience,  and  which  no  mili- 
tary skill,  however  great,  and  no  national  strength 
and  resolution,  however  concentrated  and  prolonged, 
could  entirely  subdue.  To  keep  in  subjection,  there- 
fore, by  purely  military  force  a  people  of  even  greatly 
lower  development  must,  it  was  felt,  become  corre- 
spondingly difficult  ;  and  this,  not  so  much  because 
of  the  fear  of  effective  resistance  in  a  military  sense, 
but  because  of  the  lack  of  moral  force  on  the  part 
of  the  stronger  peoples  to  initiate  an  effort  involving 
a  principle  antagonistic  to  the  spirit  governing  the 
development  which  these  peoples  were  themselves 
undergoing. 

Throughout  the  early  and  middle  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  century  we  have,  therefore,  to  watch 
the  development  of  this  spirit  and  the  effects 
it   produced.      Before   the   close   of    the  eighteenth 


330  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

century  the  agitation  against  the  slave-trade  in  the 
colonies  had  assumed  large  proportions.  In  Eng- 
land a  motion  was  carried  in  the  House  of  Commons 
in  1792,  providing  for  the  gradual  abolition  of  the 
traffic.  In  1794  the  French  Convention  decreed 
that  all  slaves  throughout  the  French  colonies  should 
be  admitted  to  the  rights  of  French  citizens ;  and, 
although  slavery  did  not  cease  in  the  French  domin- 
ions for  some  fifty  years  after,  the  Convention  in 
this  as  in  other  matters  only  anticipated  the  future. 
The  agitation  in  England  against  the  slave-trade 
having  been  largely  successful,  the  feeling  against 
the  employment  of  slaves  continued  to  grow  in 
strength  until  an  Act  was  at  length  obtained  in 
1834,  finally  abolishing  slavery  in  the  British  settle- 
ments, the  slave-owners  being  awarded  ,£20,000,000 
as  indemnification.  The  negroes  in  the  French 
settlements  were  emancipated  in  1848,  those  in  the 
Dutch  colonies  in  1863;  while  the  slaves  in  the 
Southern  states  of  the  American  Union  obtained 
their  freedom  as  the  result  of  the  Civil  War  of 
1862-65. 

Meanwhile  the  growth  of  the  other  influence  tend- 
ing to  undermine  the  position  of  the  European  races 
in  the  tropical  countries  they  had  occupied  had  con- 
tinued. By  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
coloured  races  of  Hayti,  under  the  influence  of  the 
ideas  of  the  French  Revolution,  had  thrown  off 
the  rule  of  France.  Before  the  first  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century  had  passed  away  the  Spanish 
territories  of  Central  and  South  America  —  often 
still  spoken  of  as  if  they  were  inhabited  by  Euro- 
peans, although  in  most  of  which,  it  must  be  remem- 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  331 

bered,  the  vast  bulk  of  the  population  consists  of 
native  Indians,  imported  negroes,  and  mixed  races  — 
had,  one  after  another,  declared  their  independence 
of  European  rule.  It  came  to  be  looked  upon  as 
only  natural  and  inevitable  that  it  should  be  so ; 
and  it  was  held  to  be  only  a  question  of  time  for  the 
Dutch  possessions  and  the  remaining  Spanish  set- 
tlements to  follow  suit.  The  English  settlements 
in  the  West  Indies,  it  was  supposed,  would  become 
independent  too.  They  came  to  be  regarded  as 
being  as  good  as  gone.  We  have  Mr.  Froude's 
word  for  it  that  he  had  it  on  high  official  authority, 
about  i860,  that  all  preparations  for  the  transition 
had  been  already  made.  "  A  decision  had  been  irrev- 
ocably taken.  The  troops  were  to  be  withdrawn 
from  the  Islands,  and  Jamaica,  Trinidad,  and  the 
English  Antilles  were  to  be  masters  of  their  own 
destiny."1  The  withdrawal  did  not  take  place,  but 
the  general  feeling  in  the  minds  of  politicians  in 
England  at  the  time  was  undoubtedly  such  as  might 
have  prompted  such  a  decision. 

If  we  turn  now  to  the  condition  of  affairs  accom- 
panying these  events  in  the  countries  in  question, 
we  have  presented  to  us  what  is  probably  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  spectacles  the  world  has  beheld. 
The  enterprise  that  once  attempted  to  develop  the 
resources  of  the  countries  concerned,  has  been  to  a 
large  extent  interrupted.  Regarding  the  West  Indies 
first,  we  have  to  note  that  their  former  prosperity 
has  waned.  The  black  races  under  the  new  order  of 
things  have  multiplied  exceedingly.  Where  left  to 
themselves  under  British  rule,  whether  with  or  with- 

1  The  English  in  the  West  Indies,  p.  6. 


332  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

out  the  political  institutions  of  the  advanced  Euro- 
pean peoples,  they  have  not  developed  the  natural 
resources  of  the  rich  and  fertile  lands  they  have 
inherited.  Nor  do  they  show  any  desire  to  undertake 
the  task.  The  descriptions  we  have  had  presented 
to  us  for  many  years  past  by  writers  and  politicians 
of  some  of  the  West  India  Islands,  read  like  accounts 
of  a  former  civilisation.  Decaying  harbours,  once 
crowded  with  shipping ;  ruined  wharves,  once  busy 
with  commerce  ;  roofless  warehouses  ;  stately  build- 
ings falling  to  ruins  and  overgrown  with  tropical 
creepers  ;  deserted  mines  and  advancing  forests,  — 
these  are  some  of  the  signs  of  the  change.  In  Hayti 
where  the  blacks  have  been  independent  of  European 
control  for  the  greater  part  of  a  century,  we  have 
even  a  more  gloomy  picture.  Revolution  has  suc- 
ceeded revolution,  often  accompanied  by  revolting 
crime ;  under  the  outward  forms  of  European  gov- 
ernment every  form  of  corruption  and  license  has 
prevailed  ;  its  commerce  has  been  more  than  once 
almost  extinguished  by  its  political  revolutions  ;  the 
resources  of  the  country  remain  undeveloped  ;  inter- 
course with  white  races  is  not  encouraged,  and  the 
Black  Republic,  instead  of  advancing,  is  said  to  be 
drifting  slowly  backwards. 

Turning  to  the  mainland  of  Central  America 
and  the  vast  territories  embraced  in  tropical  South 
America,  once  under  the  rule  of  the  Spaniards  and 
Portuguese,  the  spectacle  is  in  some  respects  more 
noteworthy.  In  this  expanse,  which  includes  over 
three-fourths  of  the  entire  continental  area  south  of 
the  territory  of  the  United  States,  we  have  one  of  the 
richest    regions  of   the  earth.     Under   the  outward 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  333 

forms  of  European  government  it  appears,  however, 
to  be  slowly  drifting  out  of  our  civilisation.  The 
habit  has  largely  obtained  amongst  us  of  thinking  of 
these  countries  as  inhabited  by  European  races  and 
as  included  in  our  Western  civilisation,  —  a  habit 
doubtless  due  to  the  tendency  to  regard  them  as  colo- 
nies of  European  powers  which  have  become  indepen- 
dent after  the  manner  of  the  United  States.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  this  view  has  little  to  justify  it.  In 
the  twenty-two  republics  comprising  the  territory 
in  question,  considerably  over  three-fourths  of  the 
entire  population  are  descendants  of  the  original 
Indian  inhabitants,  or  imported  negroes,  or  mixed 
races.  The  pure-white  population  appears  to  be 
unable  to  maintain  itself  for  more  than  a  limited 
number  of  generations  without  recruiting  itself  from 
the  outside.  It  is  a  gradually  diminishing  element, 
tending  to  ally  itself  to  an  increasing  degree  with 
"  colour."  Both  for  climatic  reasons,  and  in  obedience 
to  the  general  law  of  population  already  noticed,  by 
which  the  upper  strata  of  society  (to  which  the  white 
population  for  the  most  part  belongs)  are  unable  to 
maintain  themselves  apart  for  any  considerable  period, 
we  must,  apparently,  look  forward  to  the  time  when 
these  territories  will  be  almost  exclusively  peopled 
by  the  Black  and  Indian  races. 

Meanwhile  the  resources  of  this  large  region  remain 
almost  undeveloped  or  run  to  waste.  During  the  past 
fifty  years  the  European  powers  may  be  said  to  have 
endeavoured  to  develop  them  in  a  manner  that  appar- 
ently promised  to  be  advantageous  to  both  parties, 
and  not  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  the  new  altru- 
istic ideas  which  have  come  to  govern  men's  minds. 


334  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

Since  the  period  of  their  independence,  immense 
sums  have  been  borrowed  by  the  republics  of  Central 
and  South  America,  with  the  object  of  developing 
their  resources,  and  large  amounts  have  also  been 
invested  by  private  persons  in  public  enterprises  un- 
dertaken by  Europeans  in  these  countries.  But  the 
general  prevalence  of  those  qualities  which  distinguish 
peoples  of  low  social  efficiency  has  been  like  a  blight 
over  the  whole  region.  In  nearly  all  the  republics 
in  question  the  history  of  government  has  been  the 
same.  Under  the  outward  forms  of  written  laws  and 
constitutions  of  the  most  exemplary  character,  they 
have  displayed  a  general  absence  of  that  sense  of 
public  and  private  duty  which  has  always  distinguished 
peoples  who  have  reached  a  state  of  high  social  devel- 
opment. Corruption  in  all  departments  of  the  govern- 
ment, insolvency,  bankruptcy,  and  political  revolutions 
succeeding  each  other  at  short  intervals,  have  become 
almost  the  normal  incidents  of  public  life  —  the  ac- 
companying features  being  a  permanent  state  of 
uncertainty,  lack  of  energy  and  enterprise  amongst 
the  people,  and  general  commercial  stagnation.  Much 
of  the  territory  occupied  by  these  states  is  amongst 
the  richest  in  the  world  in  natural  resources.  '  Yet 
we  seem  to  have  reached  a  stage  in  which  the  enter- 
prise of  the  Western  races  is  almost  as  effectively 
excluded  therefrom,  or  circumscribed  therein,  as  in 
the  case  of  China.  Not,  however,  through  any  spirit 
of  exclusiveness  in  the  people  or  desire  to  develop 
these  resources  themselves,  but  by,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  lack  in  the  inhabitants  of  qualities  contributing 
to  social  efficiency,  and,  on  the  other,  by  the  ascen- 
dency in  the  minds  of  the  Western  peoples  of  that 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  335 

altruistic  spirit  which,  except  in  a  clear  case  of  duty 
or  necessity,  deprives  any  attempt  to  assume  by  force 
the  government  and  administration  of  the  resources 
of  other  peoples  of  the  moral  force  necessary  to  ensure 
its  success. 

Now  it  would  appear  probable  that  we  have,  in  the 
present  peculiar  relationship  of  the  Western  peoples 
to  the  coloured  races,  the  features  of  a  transition  of 
great  interest  and  importance,  the  nature  of  which  is, 
as  yet,  hardly  understood.  It  is  evident  that,  despite 
the  greater  consideration  now  shown  for  the  rights  of 
the  lower  races,  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the 
absolute  ascendency  in  the  world  to-day  of  the  West- 
ern peoples  and  of  Western  civilisation.  There  has 
been  no  period  in  history  when  this  ascendency  has 
been  so  unquestionable  and  so  complete  as  in  the  time 
in  which  we  are  living.  No  one  can  doubt  that  it  is 
within  the  power  of  the  leading  European  peoples  of 
to-day — should  they  so  desire  —  to  parcel  out  the 
entire  equatorial  regions  of  the  earth  into  a  series  of 
satrapies,  and  to  administer  their  resources,  not  as  in 
the  past  by  a  permanently  resident  population,  but 
from  the  temperate  regions  and  under  the  direction 
of  a  relatively  small  European  official  population. 
And  this  without  any  fear  of  effective  resistance  from 
the  inhabitants.  Always,  however,  assuming  that 
there  existed  a  clear  call  of  duty  or  necessity  to  provide 
the  moral  force  necessary  for  such  action. 

It  is  this  last  stipulation  which  it  is  all-important 
to  remember  in  any  attempt  which  is  made  to  esti- 
mate the  probable  course  of  events  in  the  future. 
For  it  removes  at  once  the  centre  of  interest  and 
observation  to  the  lands  occupied  by  the  European 


336  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION  chap. 

peoples.  It  is,  in  short,  in  the  development  in  prog- 
ress amongst  these  peoples,  and  not  in  the  events 
taking  place  to-day  in  lands  occupied  by  the  black 
and  coloured  races,  that  we  must  seek  for  the  con- 
trolling factor  in  the  immediate  future  of  the  tropical 
regions  of  the  world.1 

Now,  stress  has  been  laid  in  the  preceding  chapters 
on  the  fact  that  we  have  in  the  altruistic  development 
that  has  been  slowly  taking  place  amongst  the  Euro- 
pean peoples  the  clue  to  the  efficiency  of  our  civilisa- 

1  Mr.  C.  H.  Pearson,  in  a  prediction  which  has  recently  attracted 
attention,  has,  it  appears  to  the  writer,  made  the  serious  mistake  of 
estimating  the  future  by  watching  the  course  of  events  outside  the  tem- 
perate regions,  rather  than  by  following  the  clue  to  those  events  which 
we  have  in  the  development  in  progress  amongst  the  Western  peoples. 
He  accordingly  ventures  to  foretell  that  "  The  day  will  come,  and  per- 
haps is  not  far  distant,  when  the  European  observer  will  look  round  to 
see  the  globe  girdled  with  a  continuous  zone  of  the  black  and  yellow 
races,  no  longer  too  weak  for  aggression  or  under  tutelage,  but  inde- 
pendent, or  practically  so,  in  government,  monopolising  the  trade  of 
their  own  regions,  and  circumscribing  the  industry  of  the  European; 
when  Chinamen  and  the  nations  of  Hindostan,  the  States  of  South 
America,  by  that  time  predominantly  Indian,  and  it  may  be  African 
nations  of  the  Congo  and  the  Zambesi,  under  a  dominant  caste  of 
foreign  rulers,  are  represented  by  fleets  in  the  European  seas,  invited  to 
international  conferences,  and  welcomed  as  allies  in  the  quarrels  of  the 
civilised  world.  The  citizens  of  these  countries  will  then  be  taken  up 
into  the  social  relations  of  the  white  races,  will  throng  the  English  turf, 
or  the  salons  of  Paris,  and  will  be  admitted  to  intermarriage.  It  is  idle 
to  say  that,  if  all  this  should  come  to  pass,  our  pride'  of  place  will  not 
be  humiliated.  We  were  struggling  amongst  ourselves  for  supremacy 
in  a  world  which  we  thought  of  as  destined  to  belong  to  the  Aryan  and 
to  the  Christian  faith,  to  the  letters  and  arts  and  charm  of  social  manners 
which  we  have  inherited  from  the  best  times  in  the  past.  We  shall 
wake  to  find  ourselves  elbowed  and  hustled,  and  perhaps  even  thrust 
aside,  by  peoples  whom  we  looked  down  upon  as  servile  and  thought 
of  as  bound  always  to  minister  to  our  needs."  —  National  Life  and 
Character,  chap.  i. 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  337 

tion.  It  is  this  development  which  — by  its  influence 
in  breaking  down  an  earlier  organisation  of  society, 
and  by  its  tendency  to  bring,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  the  race,  all  the  people  into  the  rivalry  of 
life  on  a  footing  of  equality  of  opportunity  —  has 
raised  our  Western  civilisation  to  its  present  position 
of  ascendency  in  the  world.  It  must  be  always  re- 
membered, however,  that  a  principal  cause  operating 
in  producing  it  has  been  the  doctrine  peculiar  to  the 
ethical  system  upon  which  our  civilisation  is  founded 
—  the  doctrine,  steadfastly  and  uncompromisingly 
held,  of  the  native  equality  of  all  men.  So  great  has 
been  the  resistance  to  be  overcome,  so  exceptional  in 
the  history  of  the  race  has  been  the  nature  of  the 
process  of  expansion  through  which  we  have  passed, 
that  only  a  doctrine  held  as  this  has  been,  and  sup- 
ported by  the  tremendous  sanctions  behind  it,  could 
have  effected  so  great  a  social  transformation.  Of 
such  importance  has  been  the  character  of  this 
process,  and  so  strong  has  been  the  social  instinct 
that  has  recognised  its  vital  significance  to  the  West- 
ern peoples  themselves,  that  everything  has  gone 
down  before  the  doctrine  which  produced  it.  It  is 
this  doctrine  which  has  raised  the  negro  in  the  South- 
ern States  of  North  America  to  the  rank  of  citizen  of 
the  United  States,  despite  the  incongruous  position 
which  he  now  occupies  in  that  country.  It  is  before 
this  doctrine  {because  of  its  predominant  importance  to 
ourselves),  and  not  before  the  coloured  races,  that  the 
European  peoples  have  retreated  in  those  tropical 
lands  which,  being  unsuitable  for  colonisation,  could 
have  been  ruled  and  developed  only  under  a  system 
of  military  occupation. 


338  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

We  must,  therefore,  in  any  attempt  to  estimate  our 
future  relationship  to  the  coloured  races  outside  the 
temperate  regions,  keep  clearly  in  mind  the  hitherto 
supreme  importance  to  the  Western  peoples  of  this 
altruistic  development,  and,  therefore,  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  native  equality  of  men  which  has  accom- 
panied it. 

Now,  there  are  two  great  events  which  will  in  all 
probability  fill  a  great  part  in  the  history  of  the 
twentieth  century.  The  first  will  be  the  accomplish- 
ment amongst  the  Western  peoples  of  the  last  stage 
of  that  process  of  social  development  which  tends  to 
bring  all  the  people  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  con- 
ditions of  social  equality.  The  other  will  be  the  final 
filling  up  by  these  peoples  of  all  those  tracts  in  the 
temperate  regions  of  the  earth  suitable  for  permanent 
occupation.  As  both  these  processes  tend  toward 
completion  it  would  appear  that  we  must  expect  our 
present  relationship  towards  the  coloured  races  occupy- 
ing territories  outside  the  temperate  zones  to  undergo 
further  development.  With  the  completion  of  that 
process  of  social  evolution  in  which  the  doctrine  of 
the  native  equality  of  men  has  played  so  important 
a  part  —  and,  therefore,  with  the  probable  modifica- 
tion of  that  instinct  which  has  hitherto  recognised 
the  vital  necessity  to  ourselves  of  maintaining  this 
doctrine  in  its  most  uncompromising  form  —  it  seems 
probable  that  there  must  arise  a  tendency  to  scruti- 
nise more  closely  the  existing  differences  between 
ourselves  and  the  coloured  races  as  regards  the  quali- 
ties contributing  to  social  efficiency ;  this  tendency 
being  accompanied  by  a  disposition  to  relax  our 
hitherto  prevalent  opinion  that  the  doctrine  of  equal- 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  339 

ity  requires  us  to  shut  our  eyes  to  those  differences 
where  political  relations  are  concerned. 

As  the  growth  of  this  feeling  will  be  coincident 
with  the  filling  up  to  the  full  limit  of  the  remaining 
territories  suitable  for  European  occupation  and  the 
growing  pressure  of  population  therein,  it  may  be 
expected  that  the  inexpediency  of  allowing  a  great 
extent  of  territory  in  the  richest  region  of  the  globe 
—  that  comprised  within  the  tropics  —  to  remain  un- 
developed, with  its  resources  running  largely  to  waste 
under  the  management  of  races  of  low  social  effi- 
ciency, will  be  brought  home  with  ever-growing  force 
to  the  minds  of  the  Western  peoples.  The  day  is 
probably  not  far  distant  when,  with  the  advance  sci- 
ence is  making,  we  shall  recognise  that  it  is  in  the 
tropics,  and  not  in  the  temperate  zones  that  we  have 
the  greatest  food-producing  and  material-producing 
regions  of  the  earth  ;  that  the  natural  highways  of 
commerce  in  the  world  should  be  those  which  run 
north  and  south ;  and  that  we  have  the  highest  pos- 
sible interest  in  the  proper  development  and  efficient 
administration  of  the  tropical  regions,  and  in  an 
exchange  of  products  therewith  on  a  far  larger  scale 
than  has  been  yet  attempted  or  imagined. 

The  question  that  will,  therefore,  present  itself  for 
solution  will  be  :  How  is  the  development  and  efficient 
administration  of  these  regions  to  be  secured  ?  The 
ethical  development  that  has  taken  place  in  our 
civilisation  has  rendered  the  experiment  once  made 
to  develop  their  resources  by  forced  native  labour  no 
longer  possible,  or  permissible  even  if  possible.  We 
have  already  abandoned,  under  pressure  of  experience, 
the  idea  which  at  one  time  prevailed  that  the  tropical 


340  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

regions  might  be  occupied  and  permanently  colonised 
by  European  races  as  vast  regions  in  the  temperate 
climes  have  been.  Within  a  measurable  period  in  the 
future,  and  under  pressure  of  experience,  we  shall 
probably  also  have  to  abandon  the  idea  which  has  in 
like  manner  prevailed  for  a  time,  that  the  coloured 
races  left  to  themselves  possess  the  qualities  neces- 
sary to  the  development  of  the  rich  resources  of  the 
lands  they  have  inherited.  For,  a  clearer  insight  into 
the  laws  that  have  shaped  the  course  of  human  evolu- 
tion must  bring  us  to  see  that  the  process  which  has 
gradually  developed  the  energy,  enterprise,  and  social 
efficiency  of  the  race  northwards,  and  which  has  left 
less  richly  endowed  in  this  respect  the  peoples  inhabit- 
ing the  regions  where  the  conditions  of  life  are  easiest, 
is  no  passing  accident  or  the  result  of  circumstances 
changeable  at  will,  but  part  of  the  cosmic  order  of 
things  which  we  have  no  power  to  alter. 

It  would  seem  that  the  solution  which  must  develop 
itself  under  pressure  of  circumstances  in  the  future 
is,  that  the  European  races  will  gradually  come  to 
realise  that  the  tropics  must  be  administered  from  the 
temperate  regions.  There  is  no  insurmountable  diffi- 
culty in  the  task.  Even  now  all  that  is  required  to 
ensure  its  success  is  a  clearly-defined  conception  of 
moral  necessity.  This,  it  would  seem,  must  come 
under  the  conditions  referred  to,  when  the  energetic 
races  of  the  world,  having  completed  the  colonisation 
of  the  temperate  regions,  are  met  with  the  spectacle 
of  the  resources  of  the  richest  regions  of  the  earth 
still  running  largely  to  waste  under  inefficient  man- 
agement. 

In  discussing  the  present  condition  of  the  tropical 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  341 

regions  of  America  no  reference  was  made  to  the  ex- 
periment which,  in  the  corresponding  regions  of  the 
Eastern  Hemisphere,  has  been  taking  place  under 
British  rule  in  India.  For  the  past  half-century  the 
relationship  existing  between  England  and  India  has 
been  the  cause  of  considerable  heart-searching  and 
conflict  of  opinion  amongst  politicians  of  the  more 
advanced  school  in  England.  The  means  whereby  a 
footing  was  at  first  obtained  in  that  country  had  little 
to  distinguish  them  from  those  already  mentioned 
which  led  the  European  races  at  one  time  to  occupy 
vast  territories  in  tropical  regions.  In  the  altruistic 
development  of  the  nineteenth  century  which  has  so 
profoundly  affected  the  relationships  of  the  European 
peoples  to  other  races,  it  has  come  to  be  felt  by  many 
politicians  that  the  position  of  Great  Britain  in  India 
involved  a  denial  of  the  spirit  actuating  the  advanced 
peoples,  and  that  it  tended  to  become  in  consequence 
morally  indefensible.  This  was  undoubtedly  the  feel- 
ing in  the  minds  of  a  considerable  section  of  persons 
in  England  at  no  distant  date  in  the  past. 

Nevertheless,  as  time  has  gone  by,  other  features 
of  the  position  have  pressed  themselves  with  growing 
force  upon  the  minds  of  the  British  people.  Excep- 
tionally influenced  as  the  British  nation  has  been  by 
the  altruistic  spirit  underlying  our  civilisation,  its  ad- 
ministration of  the  Indian  peninsula  has  never  been 
marked  by  those  features  which  distinguished  Spanish 
rule  in  the  American  continent.  English  rule  has 
tended  more  and  more  to  involve  the  conscientious 
discharge  of  the  duties  of  our  position  towards  the 
native  races.  We  have  respected  their  rights,  their 
ideas,  their  religions,  and  even  their  independence  to 


342  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

the  utmost  extent  compatible  with  the  efficient  ad- 
ministration of  the  government  of  the  country. 

The  result  has  been  remarkable.  There  has  been 
for  long  in  progress  in  India  a  steady  development  of 
the  resources  of  the  country  which  cannot  be  paral- 
leled in  any  other  tropical  region  of  the  world.  Pub- 
lic works  on  the  most  extensive  scale  and  of  the  most 
permanent  character  have  been  undertaken  and  com- 
pleted ;  roads  and  bridges  have  been  built ;  mining 
and  agriculture  have  been  developed ;  irrigation 
works,  which  have  added  considerably  to  the  fertility 
and  resources  of  large  tracts  of  country,  have  been 
constructed ;  even  sanitary  reform  is  beginning  to 
make  considerable  progress.  European  enterprise 
too,  attracted  by  security  and  integrity  in  the  govern- 
ment, has  been  active.  Railways  have  been  gradually 
extended  over  the  Peninsula.  Indian  tea,  almost  un- 
known a  short  time  ago,  has,  through  the  planting  and 
cultivation  of  suitable  districts  under  European  super- 
vision, already  come  into  serious  competition  with  the 
Chinese  article  in  the  markets  of  the  world.  The 
cotton  industry  of  India  has  already  entered  on 
friendly  rivalry  with  that  of  Lancashire.  Other  in- 
dustries, suited  to  the  condition  of  the  country,  are  in 
like  manner  rising  into  prominence,  without  any  kind 
of  artificial  protection  or  encouragement ;  the  only 
contribution  of  the  ruling  powers  to  their  welfare 
being  the  guarantee  of  social  order  and  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  conditions  of  efficiency  and  integrity  in 
the  administration  of  the  departments  of  government. 

The  commerce  of  the  country  has  expanded  in  a 
still  more  striking  manner.  In  the  largest  open  mar- 
ket in  the  world,  that  which  Great  Britain  provides, 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  343 

India  now  stands  third  on  the  list  as  contributor  of 
produce,  ranking  only  below  the  United  States  and 
France,  and  above  Germany  and  all  our  Australian 
colonies  together.  She  takes,  too,  as  much  as  she 
gives,  for  her  exports  to  and  imports  from  the  United 
Kingdom  nearly  balance  each  other.  In  the  char- 
acter of  importer  she  is,  indeed,  the  largest  of  all 
the  customers  of  Great  Britain,  our  Australasian 
colonies  and  the  United  States  coming  after  her  on 
the  list.  This  exchange  of  products  has  all  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  as  profitable  as  it  is  creditable  to 
both  parties  concerned. 

Very  different,  too,  is  the  spirit  animating  both 
sides  in  this  development  of  the  resources  of  India  as 
compared  with  that  which  prevailed  in  past  times. 
There  is  no  question  now  of  the  ruling  race  merely 
exploiting  India  to  their  own  selfish  advantage. 
Great  Britain  desires  to  share  in  the  prosperity  she 
has  assisted  in  creating,  it  is  true  ;  but,  for  the  most 
part,  she  shares  indirectly  and  in  participation  with 
the  rest  of  the  world.  India  sends  her  products  to 
British  markets,  but  she  is  equally  free  to  send  them 
elsewhere.  As  her  development  proceeds  she  offers 
a  larger  market  for  the  products  of  our  industries  ; 
but  England  has  reserved  to  herself  no  exclusive 
advantages  in  Indian  markets.  Under  the  principle 
of  free  trade  all  the  rest  of  the  world  may  compete 
with  her  on  equal  terms  in  those  markets.  Our  gain 
tends  to  be  a  gain,  not  only  to  India,  but  to  civilisa- 
tion in  general. 

The  object-lesson  that  all  this  has  afforded  has  not 
been  without  its  effect  on  English  public  opinion  — 
an  effect  which  deepens  as  the  true  nature  of  the 


344  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

relationship  existing  between  the  two  countries  is 
more  generally  understood.  Nor  is  there  lack  of 
similar  experiences  elsewhere.  The  work  undertaken 
by  France  in  Algeria  and  Tunis,  although  it  has  dif- 
fered in  many  important  respects  from  that  performed 
by  Great  Britain  in  India,  and  although  it  has  been 
undoubtedly  more  directly  inspired  by  the  thought  of 
immediate  benefit  to  French  interests,1  has  been  on 
the  whole,  it  must  be  frankly  confessed,  work  done 
in  the  cause  of  civilisation  in  general.  Within  the 
past  decade  we  have  had  a  more  striking  lesson  still 
in  the  case  of  Egypt.  Some  seventeen  years  ago 
that  country,  although  within  sight  of,  and  in  actual 
contact  with,  European  civilisation,  had  reached  a 
condition  of  disaster  through  misgovernment,  extrava- 
gance, and  oppression  without  example,  as  a  recent 
writer,  who  speaks  with  authority,  has  insisted,  "in 
the  financial  history  of  any  country  from  the  remotest 
ages  to  the  present  time."2  Within  thirteen  years 
the  public  debt  of  a  country  of  only  6  millions  of  in- 
habitants had  been  increased  from  3  millions  to  89 

1  For  instance,  the  Times  prints  the  following  dispatch  from  its  cor- 
respondent at  Dunkirk,  dated  4th  August  1893:  "From  1st  October 
the  carrying  trade  between  Algeria  and  France  will  be  exclusively  con- 
fined to  French  vessels,  all  foreign  Powers,  including  Great  Britain, 
having  given  up  their  right  to  participate  in  it.  This  measure  will 
chiefly  affect  British  ships  which  held  the  bulk  of  the  trade.  At  this 
port  alone  the  British  tonnage  employed  in  trading  with  Algeria 
amounted  in  1891  to  34,507  tons  net  register,  and  in  1892  to  31,103 
tons.  Had  any  European  Power  withheld  its  sanction  the  trade  must, 
in  virtue  of  existing  treaties,  have  remained  open  to  all  flags.  None 
save  England,  however,  were  sufficiently  interested  in  it  to  oppose  this 
new  concession  to  protection." 

2  England  in  Egypt,  by  Alfred  Milner,  late  Under-Secretary  for 
Finance  in  Egypt.     London,  1893. 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  345 

millions,  or  nearly  thirty-fold.1  With  a  submissive 
population,  a  corrupt  bureaucracy,  and  a  reckless, 
ambitious,  and  voluptuous  ruler,  surrounded  by  ad- 
venturers of  every  kind,  we  had  all  the  elements  of 
national  bankruptcy  and  ruin.  Things  drifted  from 
bad  to  worse,  but  it  was  felt  that  nothing  could  be 
more  at  variance,  theoretically,  with  the  principles  of 
the  Liberal  party  then  in  power  in  England,  than 
active  interference  by  the  English  people  in  the 
affairs  of  that  country.  Yet  within  a  few  years  cir- 
cumstances had  proved  stronger  than  prevailing  views, 
and  England  found  herself  most  unwillingly  compelled 
to  interfere  by  force  in  the  government  of  Egypt ; 
and  obliged  to  attempt,  in  the  administration  of  its 
affairs,  what,  in  the  peculiar  conditions  prevailing, 
appeared  to  be  one  of  the  most  hopeless,  difficult,  and 
thankless  tasks  ever  undertaken  by  a  nation. 

Yet  the  results  have  been  most  striking.  Within 
a  few  years  the  country  had  emerged  from  a  condi- 
tion of  chronic  and  apparently  hopeless  bankruptcy, 
and  attained  to  a  position  of  solvency,  with  a  revenue 
tending  to  outrun  expenditure.  Great  improvements 
in  the  administration  of  the  state  departments  had 
been  effected.  Public  works  which  have  greatly  con- 
tributed to  the  prosperity  of  the  country  had  been 
completed.  The  Kurbash  had  been  suppressed  ;  the 
Corvee  had  been  reduced ;  the  Barrage  had  been 
repaired ;  the  native  administration  of  justice  had 
been  improved.  Under  an  improved  system  of  irri- 
gation the  area  of  land  won  from  the  desert  for 
cultivation  was  enormously  increased.      The  cotton 

1  England  in  Egypt,  by  Alfred  Milner,  late  Under-Secretary  for 
Finance  in  Egypt.     London,  1893. 


346  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

crop,  representing  one-third  of  the  entire  agricultural 
wealth  of  the  country,  had  increased  50  per  cent  in 
a  few  years.  The  foreign  trade  increased  to  the 
highest  point  it  had  ever  attained ;  and  the  credit  of 
the  country  so  far  improved  that  within  nine  years 
the  price  of  its  Unified  stock  had  risen  from  59 
to  98. 

All  these  results  were  attained  by  simple  means ; 
by  the  exercise  of  qualities  which  are  not  usually 
counted  either  brilliant  or  intellectual,  but  which 
nevertheless  are,  above  all  others,  characteristic  of 
peoples  capable  of  attaining  a  high  degree  of  social 
efficiency,  and  of  those  peoples  only.  British  influ- 
ence in  Egypt,  Mr.  Milner  maintains,  "is  not  exer- 
cised to  impose  an  uncongenial  foreign  system  upon 
a  reluctant  people.  It  is  a  force  making  for  the  tri- 
umph of  the  simplest  ideas  of  honesty,  humanity,  and 
justice,  to  the  value  of  which  Egyptians  are  just  as 
much  alive  as  any  one  else."  1 

Nor  can  it  be  said  that  Great  Britain  has  exploited 
Egypt  in  her  own  interest,  or  obtained  any  exclusive 
advantage  by  the  development  of  the  resources  of 
the  country.  It  is  true  that  she  does  benefit,  and 
benefit  considerably,  by  the  improvement  which  has 
followed.  But  it  is  in  the  same  manner  as  in  India. 
For,  says  Mr.  Milner,  "the  improvement  of  Egyp- 
tian administration  leads  directly  to  the  revival  of 
Egyptian  trade,  and  in  that  increase,  England,  who 
has  more  than  half  the  trade  of  Egypt  in  her  hands, 
possesses  a  direct  interest  of  the  most  unmistakable 
kind.     Our  own  country  does  thus,  after  all,  obtain  a 

1  England  in  Egypt,  by  Alfred  Milner,  late  Under-Secretary  for 
Finance  in  Egypt.     London,  1893. 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  347 

recompense,  and  a  recompense  at  once  most  substan- 
tial and  most  honourable  for  any  sacrifices  she  may 
make  for  Egypt.  She  gains,  not  at  the  expense  of 
others,  but  along  with  others.  If  she  is  the  greatest 
gainer,  it  is  simply  because  she  is  the  largest  partner 
in  the  business."1  But  "neither  directly  nor  indi- 
rectly has  Great  Britain  drawn  from  her  predominant 
position  any  profit  at  the  expense  of  other  nations."  2 
Our  gain  is  there  also  the  gain  of  civilisation. 

It  is  to  be  expected  that  as  time  goes  on,  and  an 
approach  is  made  to  the  conditions  before  mentioned, 
such  object-lessons  as  these  will  not  be  without  their 
effect  on  the  minds  of  the  European  races.  It  will 
probably  come  to  be  recognised  that  experiments  in 
developing  the  resources  of  regions  unsuitable  for 
European  colonisation,  such  as  that  now  in  progress 
in  India,  differ  essentially  both  in  character  and  in 
spirit  from  all  past  attempts.  It  will  probably  be 
made  clear,  and  that  at  no  distant  date,  that  the  last 
thing  our  civilisation  is  likely  to  permanently  tolerate 
is  the  wasting  of  the  resources  of  the  richest  regions 
of  the  earth  through  the  lack  of  the  elementary  qual- 
ities of  social  efficiency  in  the  races  possessing  them. 
The  right  of  those  races  to  remain  in  possession  will 
be  recognised ;  but  it  will  be  no  part  of  the  future 
conditions  of  such  recognition  that  they  shall  be 
allowed  to  prevent  the  utilisation  of  the  immense 
natural  resources  which  they  have  in  charge.  At  no 
remote  date,  with  the  means  at  the  disposal  of  our 
civilisation,  the  development  of  these  resources  must 
become  one  of  the  most  pressing  and  vital  questions 

1  England  in  Egypt,  by  Alfred  Milner,  late  Under-Secretary  for 
Finance  in  Egypt.     London,  1893.  2  Ibid. 


348  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

engaging  the  attention  of  the  Western  races.  The 
advanced  societies  have,  to  some  extent,  already  in- 
tuitively perceived  the  nature  of  the  coming  change. 
We  have  evidence  of  a  general  feeling,  which  recog- 
nises the  immense  future  importance  of  the  tropical 
regions  of  the  earth  to  the  energetic  races,  in  that 
partition  of  Africa  amongst  the  European  powers 
which  forms  one  of  the  most  remarkable  signs  of  the 
times  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
same  feeling  may  be  perceived  even  in  the  United 
States,  where  the  necessity  for  the  future  predomi- 
nance of  the  influence  of  the  English-speaking  peoples 
over  the  American  Continents  is  already  recognised 
by  a  kind  of  national  instinct  that  may  be  expected 
to  find  clearer  expression  as  time  goes  on. 

Lastly,  it  will  materially  help  towards  the  solution 
of  this  and  other  difficult  problems,  if  we  are  in  a 
position,  as  it  appears  we  shall  be,  to  say  with  greater 
clearness  in  the  future,  than  we  have  been  able  to  do 
in  the  past,  what  it  is  constitutes  superiority  and 
inferiority  of  race.  We  shall  probably  have  to  set 
aside  many  of  our  old  ideas  on  the  subject.  Neither 
in  respect  alone  of  colour,  nor  of  descent,  nor  even 
of  the  possession  of  high  intellectual  capacity,  can 
science  give  us  any  warrant  for  speaking  of  one  race 
as  superior  to  another.  The  evolution  which  man  is 
undergoing  is,  over  and  above  everything  else,  a 
social  evolution.  There  is,  therefore,  but  one  abso- 
lute test  of  superiority.  It  is  only  the  race  possess- 
ing in  the  highest  degree  the  qualities  contributing 
to  social  efficiency  that  can  be  recognised  as  having 
any  claim  to  superiority. 

But  these  qualities  are  not  as  a  rule  of  the  brilliant 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  349 

order,  nor  such  as  strike  the  imagination.  Occupy- 
ing a  high  place  amongst  them  are  such  character- 
istics as  strength  and  energy  of  character,  humanity, 
probity  and  integrity,  and  simple-minded  devotion  to 
conceptions  of  duty  in  such  circumstances  as  may 
arise.  Those  who  incline  to  attribute  the  very  wide 
influence  which  the  English-speaking  peoples  have 
come  to  exercise  in  the  world  to  the  Machiavelian 
schemes  of  their  rulers  are  often  very  wide  of  the 
truth.  This  influence  is,  to  a  large  extent,  due  to 
qualities  not  at  all  of  a  showy  character.  It  is,  for 
instance,  a  fact  of  more  than  superficial  signifi- 
cance, and  one  worth  remembering,  that  in  the  South 
American  Republics,  where  the  British  peoples  move 
amongst  a  mixed  crowd  of  many  nationalities,  the 
quality  which  has  come  to  be  accepted  as  distinctive 
of  them  is  simply  "  the  word  of  an  Englishman."  In 
like  manner  it  is  qualities  such  as  humanity,  strength, 
and  uprightness  of  character,  and  devotion  to  the 
immediate  calls  of  duty  without  thought  of  brilliant 
ends  and  ideal  results,  which  have  largely  contributed 
to  render  English  rule  in  India  successful  when  simi- 
lar experiments  elsewhere  have  been  disastrous.  It 
is  to  the  exercise  of  qualities  of  this  class  that  we 
must  also  chiefly  attribute  the  success  which  has 
so  far  attended  the  political  experiment  of  extraor- 
dinary difficulty  which  England  has  undertaken  in 
Egypt.  And  it  is  upon  just  the  same  qualities,  and 
not  upon  any  ideal  schemes  for  solving  the  social 
problem,  that  we  must  depend  to  carry  us  safely 
through  the  social  revolution  which  will  be  upon  us 
in  the  twentieth  century,  and  which  will  put  to  the 
most  severe  test  which  it  has  yet  had  to  endure,  the 


350  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

social  efficiency  of  the  various  sections  of  the  Western 
peoples. 

It  must  be  noticed  that  the  conclusion  here  empha- 
sised is  the  same  towards  which  the  historian  with 
the  methods  hitherto  at  his  command  has  been  already 
slowly  feeling  his  way.  Said  Mr.  Lecky  recently, 
speaking  of  the  prosperity  of  nations,  and  the  causes 
thereof  as  indicated  by  history :  "  Its  foundation  is 
laid  in  pure  domestic  life,  in  commercial  integrity,  in 
a  high  standard  of  moral  worth  and  of  public  spirit, 
in  simple  habits,  in  courage,  uprightness,  and  a  certain 
soundness  and  moderation  of  judgment  which  springs 
quite  as  much  from  character  as  from  intellect.  If 
you  would  form  a  wise  judgment  of  the  future  of  a 
nation,  observe  carefully  whether  these  qualities  are 
increasing  or  decaying.  Observe  especially  what 
qualities  count  for  most  in  public  life.  Is  character 
becoming  of  greater  or  less  importance  ?  Are  the 
men  who  obtain  the  highest  posts  in  the  nation,  men 
of  whom  in  private  life  and  irrespective  of  party  com- 
petent judges  speak  with  genuine  respect?  Are  they 
of  sincere  convictions,  consistent  lives,  indisputable 
integrity  ?  .  .  .  It  is  by  observing  this  moral 
current  that  you  can  best  cast  the  horoscope  of  a 
nation."  1 

This  is  the  utterance  of  that  department  of  knowl- 
edge which,  sooner  or  later,  when  its  true  foundations 
are  perceived,  must  become  the  greatest  of  all  the 
sciences.  It  is  but  the  still  small  voice  which  antici- 
pates the  verdict  which  will  be  pronounced  with  larger 
knowledge,  and  in  more  emphatic  terms,  by  evolu- 
tionary   science,   when   at   no   distant  date   it  must 

1  The  Political  Value  of  History,  by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky. 


X  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  351 

enable  us,  as  we  have  never  been  enabled  before,  "  to 
look  beyond  the  smoke  and  turmoil  of  our  petty 
quarrels,  and  to  detect,  in  the  slow  developments  of 
the  past,  the  great  permanent  forces  that  are  steadily 
bearing  nations  onward  to  improvement  or  decay." 

The  fuller  light  in  which  we  are  thus  able  to  view 
the  great  fundamental  problems  of  human  society 
cannot  be  without  a  strengthening  and  steadying 
influence  on  character.  We  see  that,  under  all  the 
complex  appearances  our  Western  civilisation  pre- 
sents, the  central  process  working  itself  out  in  our 
midst  is  one  which  is  ever  tending  to  bring,  for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  race,  all  the  people 
into  the  competition  of  life  on  a  footing  of  equality 
of  opportunity.  In  this  process  the  problem,  with 
which  society  and  legislators  will  be  concerned  for 
long  into  the  future,  will  be  how  to  secure  to  the 
fullest  degree  these  conditions  of  equality,  while  at 
the  same  time  retaining  that  degree  of  inequality 
which  must  result  from  offering  prizes  sufficiently 
attractive  to  keep  up  within  the  community  that  state 
of  stress  and  exertion,  without  which  no  people  can 
long  continue  in  a  high  state  of  social  efficiency. 
For  in  the  vast  process  of  change  in  progress  it  is 
always  the  conditions  of  social  efficiency,  and  not 
those  which  individuals  or  classes  may  desire  for 
themselves,  that  the  unseen  evolutionary  forces  at 
work  amongst  us  are  engaged  in  developing.  It  is  by 
the  standard  of  social  efficiency  that  we  as  individuals 
are  ever  being  tested.  It  is  in  this  quality  of  social 
efficiency  that  nations  and  peoples  are  being  con- 
tinually, and  for  the  most  part  unconsciously,  pitted 
against  each  other  in  the  complex  rivalry   of    life. 


352  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  chap. 

And  it  is  in  those  sections  of  the  race  where,  for  the 
time  being,  this  quality  obtains  the  highest  develop- 
ment, that  we  have  present  all  the  conditions  favour- 
able to  success  and  ascendency. 

Nor  is  there  any  reason  why  the  great  social  devel- 
opment proceeding  in  our  civilisation  which  has  been 
but  feebly  and  inadequately  described  in  the  preceding 
chapters,  should  be  viewed  with  distrust  by  those  of 
more  conservative  instincts  amongst  us  who  profess 
to  have  at  heart  the  highest  interests  of  humanity. 
The  movement  which  is  uplifting  the  people  —  neces- 
sarily to  a  large  extent  at  the  expense  of  those  above 
them  —  is  but  the  final  result  of  a  long  process  of 
organic  development.  All  anticipations  and  forebod- 
ings as  to  the  future  of  the  incoming  democracy, 
founded  upon  comparisons  with  the  past,  are  unre- 
liable or  worthless.  For  the  world  has  never  before 
witnessed  a  democracy  of  the  kind  that  is  now  slowly 
assuming  supreme  power  amongst  the  Western  peo- 
ples. To  compare  it  with  democracies  which  held 
power  under  the  ancient  empires  is  to  altogether 
misunderstand  both  the  nature  of  our  civilisation  and 
the  character  of  the  forces  that  have  produced  it. 
Neither  in  form  nor  in  spirit  have  we  anything  in 
common  with  the  democracies  of  the  past.  Great 
as  has  been  the  progress  in  outward  forms,  the  more 
important  difference  lies  far  deeper.  The  gradual 
emancipation  of  the  people  and  their  rise  to  supreme 
power  has  been  in  our  case  the  product  of  a  slow 
ethical  development  in  which  character  has  been 
profoundly  influenced,  and  in  which  conceptions  of 
equality  and  of  responsibility  to  each  other  have  ob- 
tained a  hold  on  the  general  mind  hitherto  unparal- 


x  CONCLUDING   REMARKS  353 

leled.  The  fact  of  our  time  which  overshadows  all 
others  is  the  arrival  of  Democracy.  But  the  percep- 
tion of  the  fact  is  of  relatively  little  importance  if 
we  do  not  also  realise  that  it  is  a  new  Democracy. 
There  are  many  who  speak  of  the  new  ruler  of 
nations  as  if  he  were  the  same  idle  Demos  whose 
ears  the  dishonest  courtiers  have  tickled  from  time 
immemorial.  It  is  not  so.  Even  those  who  attempt 
to  lead  him  do  not  yet  quite  understand  him.  Those 
who  think  that  he  is  about  to  bring  chaos  instead  of 
order,  do  not  rightly  apprehend  the  nature  of  his 
strength.  They  do  not  perceive  that  his  arrival  is 
the  crowning  result  of  an  ethical  movement  in  which 
qualities  and  attributes  which  we  have  been  all  taught 
to  regard  as  the  very  highest  of  which  human  nature 
is  capable,  find  the  completest  expression  they  have 
ever  reached  in  the  history  of  the  race. 

AA 


APPENDIX  I 

MARRIAGE-AGES  OF  VARIOUS  SECTIONS  OF  THE  POPU- 
LATION IN  ENGLAND 

The  following  is  an  extract  (by  permission  of  the  Author  and 
of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society)  from  a  paper  on  Marriage-Rates 
and  Marriage-Ages  by  Dr.  William  Ogle,  M.A.,  F.R.C.P.,  etc., 
read  before  the  Royal  Statistical  Society  of  London,  March 
1890,  and  printed  in  the  Society's  Journal,  June  1890. 

But  if  the  average  age  at  marriage  varies  but  little  from  year 
to  year,  it  is  not  so  with  the  marriage-ages  in  different  classes, 
as  is  very  clearly  to  be  seen  in  the  two  following  tables  (Tables 
F  and  G),  in  the  former  of  which  are  given  the  mean  ages  at 
marriage  of  bachelors  and  spinsters  in  different  occupational 
groups,  while  the  other  gives  the  age-distribution  of  bachelors 
and  spinsters  in  the  several  groups  at  the  time  of  marriage. 

Table  F.  — Average  Ages  at  Marriage,  1 884-85. * 


Occupations. 

Bachelors. 

Spinsters. 

24.06 
24.38 
24.92 
25-35 
25.56 
26.25 
26.67 
29.23 
31.22 

22.46 
2343 
24-31 
23.70 
23.66 

2443 
24.22 
26.91 
26.40 

Textile  hands 

Shoemakers,  tailors 

Artisans 

Labourers    . 

Commercial  clerks 

Shopkeepers,  shopmen 

Farmers  and  sons 

Professional  and  independent  class    .    . 

1  The  age-distribution  of  the  men  employed  in  the  different  occupations 
differs  much ;  and  this  would,  if  uncorrected,  of  course  cause  some  differ- 

355 


356 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


Table  G.  —  Age-Distribution,  per  iooo,  of  Bachelors  in  dif- 
ferent Occupations,  and  of  their  Wives,  at  time  of  Marriage. 


Ages. 

Miners. 

Textile 
Factory 
Hands. 

Labourers. 

Artisans. 

Shoemakers 
and  Tailors. 

a 

a 

d 
u 

1 

c 

4) 

a 

c 

J 

c 

a 

c 

1 

8 

a 

a 

1 

V 

a 

c 
1 

1 

Under  age  . 
21-25  •    •    • 
25-30  •    .    • 
30-35  •    •    • 
35-40  .    .    . 
40-45  •    •    • 
45-5o  .    .    . 
50  and  up-  | 
wards  .    \ 

169 

535 
228 

47 
14 
6 

1 

439 

388 

123 

30 

11 

4 
4 

1 

144 

558 

205 

58 

16 

12 

5 
2 

337 
432 
149 

49 
18 

7 
4 

4 

121 

455 
277 

88 

29 
18 

7 
5 

318 

408 
184 

54 
20 

9 
5 
2 

109 

489 
278 

73 

25 

17 

4 

5 

282 

448 

192 

48 

16 

8 
4 
2 

172 

477 

232 

76 

23 

6 

8 

6 

276 
412 
I83 

79 
30 
10 

4 

6 

Ages. 

Shopkeepers 
and  Shopmen. 

Commercial 
Clerks. 

tt „_„ j         Professional 

farmers  and    1    1  t„^^„„„ 

Farn^-Son,  |    •££&? 

d 

t> 

a 

d 

4> 

B 

g 

S 

c 

s 

0 

* 

d 

4) 

a 

j 

d 

c 
B 

1 

Under  age  . 
21-25  •    •    • 
25-30  .    .    . 
30-35  •    •    • 
35-40  .    .    . 
40-45  .    .    . 
45-5o  .    .    . 
50  and  up-  ) 
wards  .   J 

55 
412 

323 

128 

53 
19 

6 

4 

226 

449 

232 

62 

18 

7 
6 

27 
432 
379 
130 

13 

11 

6 

2 

197 
450 

262 

61 
17 

7 
3 

3 

31 
253 
349 
217 

75 
47 
14 

14 

in 

396 
262 

"5 
65 
20 
20 

11 

7 

144 

376 

272 

98 

43 

26 

34 

127 
402 
278 
107 

34 
24 
11 

17 

These  tables  are  based  upon  samples  taken  by  me  from  the 
marriage  registers  of  1884-85.  The  samples  were  of  considera- 
ble size ;  still  it  is  quite  possible  that  had  they  been  larger,  and 

ence  in  the  mean  marriage-ages  of  the  groups.  To  meet  this  difficulty,  so 
far  as  possible,  in  the  professional  and  independent  group  were  included 
students  of  law,  medicine,  theology,  etc.,  as  also  all  men  described  simply 
as  gentlemen ;  so  also  with  shopkeepers  were  included  shopmen,  andwith 
farmers  their  sons  or  other  near  relatives  living  with  them. 


APPENDIX   I  357 

had  they  extended  over  a  greater  number  of  years,  the  figures 
might  have  been  somewhat  different,  though  it  is  scarcely  pos- 
sible that  they  would  have  been  materially  altered.  They  show, 
at  any  rate,  with  sufficient  clearness,  that  the  ordinary  belief  that 
the  lower  the  station  in  life,  the  earlier  the  age  at  which  marriage 
is  contracted,  is  true,  and  that  the  difference  in  this  respect  be- 
tween the  upper  and  the  lower  classes  is  very  great  indeed.  It 
will  be  enough  if  we  take  a  single  example,  and  compare  miners, 
for  instance,  with  the  professional  class.  Of  the  miners  who 
marry,  704  in  1000  are  under  25  years  of  age ;  of  the  professional 
and  independent  class  only  151  ;  while  the  miners'  wives,  827, 
and  of  the  upper  classes  only  529,  per  1000  are  under  that  age. 
The  average  marriage-age  of  the  miners  is  24,  and  of  their  wives 
22|  years ;  while  the  ages  for  the  professional  and  independent 
class  are  respectively  31  and  26^  years;  a  difference  of  seven 
years  for  the  husbands  and  four  years  for  the  wives. 

The  table  of  mean  ages  has  already  appeared  in  the  forty- 
ninth  Annual  Report  of  the  Registrar-General,  and  has  been 
often  quoted  since  ;  but,  whenever  I  have  chanced  to  see  it  cited, 
I  have  been  somewhat  surprised  to  find  that  the  ages  for  the  men 
were  alone  given,  and  no  notice  taken  of  the  respective  ages  of 
the  wives.  It  appears,  however,  to  me  that  the  ages  of  the  men 
at  marriage  are,  so  far  as  concerns  the  growth  of  population,  of 
comparatively  small  importance.  For  there  is  no  reason  what- 
soever, so  far  as  I  am  aware,  to  suppose  that  retardation  of  mar- 
riage in  the  case  of  men,  of  course  within  reasonable  limits,  will 
materially  affect  the  number  of  their  offspring,  excepting  that 
the  older  a  man  is  when  he  marries  the  older  will  also  be  prob- 
ably his  wife,  and  further,  that  the  older  he  and  she  are  at  mar- 
riage, the  greater  somewhat  will  be  the  chance  that  either  he  or 
she  will  die  before  the  child-bearing  period  is  fully  completed. 
But  independently  of  these  considerations,  there  is,  as  I  say,  no 
reason  to  believe  that  a  man  who  marries  at  30  will  have  a 
smaller  family  than  a  man  who  marries  at  20,  so  long  as  the  two 
wives  are  of  one  and  the  same  age.  Doubtlessly  in  the  long-run 
the  wives  in  the  two  cases  will  not  be  of  one  and  the  same  age, 
for  as  Table  H  shows,  though  older  men  usually  marry  older 
wives,  they  do  not  marry  wives  older  in  proportion  to  their  own 
greater  age.     So  far  then  as  increase  in  population  goes,  the 


358  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

matter  of  importance  is  the  age  of  the  wife,  not  of  the  husband ; 
and  any  material  diminution  in  the  growth  of  the  people  that  is 
to  be  looked  for  from  retarded  marriage,  must  be  obtained  by 
retarding  the  marriages  of  women,  not  those  of  men.  If  greater 
age. on  the  part  of  the  husband  were  to  have  this  effect,  the 
ancient  writers  whom  I  have  already  quoted,  who  desired  above 
all  things  the  rapid  growth  of  the  population,  would  have  been 
in  serious  error  in  proposing  that  the  age  of  the  husband  should 
be  30  or  37  years  ;  but  as  a  matter  of  observation  they  were  well 
aware  that  the  age  of  the  man  had  but  little  to  do  with  the  num- 
ber of  the  progeny,  while  the  age  of  the  wife  was  of  considerable 
importance,  and  this,  as  we  have  seen,  was  put  by  them  at  18 
or  19. 

As  regards  men,  it  is  not  the  age  at  which  they  marry  that  is 
of  importance,  but  the  question  whether  they  marry  at  all,  and  I 
have  consequently  tried  to  make  some  estimate  of  the  relative 
proportions  in  which  men  in  different  classes  of  life  altogether 
abstain  from  matrimony.  The  method  I  employed  was  to  go 
through  a  large  number  of  the  census  enumeration  books,  and 
ascertain  what  proportions  of  labourers  and  artisans,  of  shop- 
keepers, and  of  professional  and  independent  men,  in  1881,  were 
still  bachelors  when  they  had  reached  the  mature  age  of  50 
years.  I  expected  to  find  that  the  proportion  would  be  smallest 
among  the  artisans  and  labourers,  and  highest  in  the  professional 
and  independent  class ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  turned  out 
that  it  was  among  the  shopkeepers  that  the  proportion  of  con- 
firmed bachelors  was  far  the  lowest,  as  probably,  with  more 
thought  given  to  the  subject,  might  have  been  anticipated,  seeing 
that  to  a  shopkeeper  a  wife  is  often  almost  a  business  necessity. 
Next  to  the  shopkeepers,  but  a  good  way  from  them,  came  the 
artisans  and  labourers ;  while  far  ahead  of  all  were  the  profes- 
sional and  independent  class,  with  a  proportion  of  permanent 
bachelors  far  above  the  rest.  What  is  true  of  the  men  in  these 
several  groups  is  probably  also  true  of  the  women,  but  I  have 
no  statistical  evidence  of  this.  I  find,  however,  testimony  to 
that  effect  given  by  those  who  are  conversant  with  the  habits  of 
working  women.     Thus  Miss  Collett,  writing1  of  the  east  end 

1  Labour  and  Life  of  the  People,  p.  472. 


APPENDIX   I  359 

of  London,  says,  "  Every  girl  in  the  lowest  classes  can  get  mar- 
ried, and  with  hardly  any  exceptions  every  girl  does  marry. 
This  is  not  true  of  the  middle  classes."  It  thus  appears  that  in 
the  upper  classes  not  only  do  a  larger  proportion  of  persons 
remain  throughout  life  unmarried,  but  those  who  do  marry, 
marry  at  a  much  more  advanced  age  than  is  the  case  with  the 
rest  of  the  population. 


APPENDIX    II 

THE  WHITE  AND  COLOURED   POPULATION  OF  THE 
SOUTHERN  UNITED   STATES,    1890 

(Reprinted  from  the  Census  Bulletin  No.  48,  dated  27th  March 

1891) 

The  relative  rate  of  increase  of  the  white  and  coloured  popu- 
lation of  the  Southern  States  during  the  last  decade  is  a  matter 
of  such  general  importance  and  interest  as  to  demand  special 
attention.  What  is  termed  the  race  count  has,  therefore,  been 
made  for  the  South  Atlantic  and  South  Central  States,  and  for 
Missouri  and  Kansas,  in  advance  of  the  main  work  of  tabulation. 
As  will  be  seen  from  the  accompanying  tables,  the  total  popula- 
tion embraced  in  this  count  is  23,875,259,  of  which  16,868,205 
were  white,  6,996,166  coloured,  and  10,888  Chinese,  Japanese, 
and  Indians.  In  the  States  herewith  included  were  found  in 
1890  fifteen-sixteenths  of  the  entire  coloured  population  of  the 
United  States,  so  that  for  the  purpose  of  immediately  ascertaining 
the  percentage  of  increase  the  returns  of  these  States  are  adequate 
and  not  likely  to  be  materially  aifected  by  the  returns  of  the  other 
States  and  territories,  where  the  coloured  population  is  small. 

The  abnormal  increase  of  the  coloured  population  in  what  is 
known  as  the  Black  Belt  during  the  decade  ending  1880  led  to 
the  popular  belief  that  the  negroes  were  increasing  at  a  much 
greater  rate  than  the  white  population.  This  error  was  a 
natural  one,  and  arose  from  the  difficulty  of  ascertaining  how 
much  of  the  increase  shown  by  the  tenth  census  was  real,  and 
how  much  was  due  to  the  omissions  of  the  census  of  1870. 
This  question  has  been  fully  discussed  in  Bulletin  No.  16,  and 
it  is  now  merely  necessary  to  add  that  the  tabulations  herewith 
given  sustain  the  theory  already  advanced,  that  the  high  rate 
of  increase  in  the  growth  of  the  coloured  population  as  shown 
in  1880  was  apparent,  not  real,  and  was  due  to  imperfect  enu- 
meration in  the  Southern  States  in  1870. 

Attention  is  first  called  to  Table  I.,  showing  the  white  and 
360 


APPENDIX   II 


361 


coloured  population  of  the  States  under  discussion  at  each 
census  since  1790,  together  with  the  number  of  coloured  to  each 
100,000  white,  and  the  percentage  of  increase  respectively  of 
white  and  coloured  for  the  several  decades. 

The  table  summarises  the  entire  case.  In  1890  there  were 
in  the  States  under  discussion  6,996,166  coloured  inhabitants, 
and  in  1880,  6,142,360.  The  coloured  element  increased  during 
the  decade  at  the  rate  of  13.90  per  cent.  The  white  popula- 
tion of  these  States  in  1890  numbered  16,868,205,  and  in  1880, 
13.530,408.  They  increased  during  the  decade  at  the  rate  of 
24.67  per  cent,  or  nearly  twice  as  rapidly  as  the  coloured  element. 

In  1880  the  proportion  of  white  to  persons  of  colour  in  these 
States  was  in  the  relation  of  100,000  to  45,397.  In  1890  the 
proportion  of  the  latter  class  had  diminished,  being  then  as 
100,000  to  41,475. 

During  the  past  decade  the  coloured  race  has  not  held  its 
own  against  the  white  in  a  region  where  the  climate  and  condi- 
tions are,  of  all  those  which  the  country  affords,  the  best  suited 
to  its  development. 

Table  I. 


Popu] 

ation. 

Number  of 

Per  cent  of  Increase. 

Years. 

Coloured  to 
100,000  White. 

White. 

Coloured. 

White. 

Coloured. 

1790 

1,271,488 

689,884 

54,258 

1800 

1,702,980 

918,336 

53,925 

33-94 

33-11 

1810 

2,208,785 

1,272,119 

57,594 

29.70 

38.52 

1820 

2,831,560 

1,653,240 

58,386 

28.20 

29.96 

1830 

3,660,758 

2,187,545 

59,757 

29.28 

32.32 

1840 

4.632,530 

2,701,901 

58,325 

26.55 

23-51 

1850 

6,222,418 

3,442,238 

55»32o 

34-32 

27.40 

i860 

8,203,852 

4,216,241 

51,393 

31.84 

22.49 

1870 

9,812,732 

4,555,990 

46,429 

19.61 

8.06 

1880 

13.530,408 

6,142,360 

45,397 

37-89 

34-82 

1890 

16,868,205 

6,996,166 

41,475 

24-67 

13.90 

Referring  again  to  this  table  it  is  seen  that  in  but  three 
decades,  that  is,  from  1800  to  1830,  during  a  part  of  which  time 
the  slave-trade  was  in  progress,  has  the  coloured  race  increased 
more  rapidly  than  the  white.     Since  1830  the  white  people  have 


362 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


steadily  increased  at  a  more  rapid  rate  than  the  coloured.  This 
increase  has  not  been  effected  by  the  aid  of  immigration,  for 
with  the  exception  of  Kansas  and  Missouri  these  States  have 
received  comparatively  few  immigrants  either  from  foreign 
countries  or  from  the  Northern  States. 

Similarly  the  proportion  of  the  coloured  inhabitants  to  the 
white  increased  somewhat  between  1800  and  1830,  but  since  that 
time  it  has  steadily  diminished.  In  1830,  when  this  proportion 
was  at  its  maximum,  there  were  nearly  6  coloured  inhabitants  to 
10  white,  but  this  proportion  has  been  reduced  to  a  trifle  more 
than  4  at  the  present  date,  or  by  nearly  one-third  of  its  amount. 

The  deficiencies  of  the  ninth  census  are  so  apparent  in  this 
table  that  any  extended  reference  to  them  is  wholly  unnecessary. 

Table  II.  shows  for  each  of  the  States  under  discussion  the 
number  of  white,  coloured,  Chinese,  Japanese,  and  Indian 
inhabitants  according  to  the  census  of  1890:  — 

Table  II. 


States. 

Total 
Population. 

White. 

Coloured. 

Chinese. 

Japa- 
nese. 

Indians. 

Total     .     .     . 
Alabama  .     .     . 

23,875,259 
1,513,017 

16,868,205 

6,996,166 

2581 

IOO 

8207 

830,796 

681,431 

40 

... 

750 

Arkansas  .     .    . 

1,128,179 

816,517 

311,227 

131 

304 

Delaware  .    .     . 

168,493 

139,429 

29,022 

38 

4 

Dist.  of  Columbia 

230,392 

154,352 

75,927 

86 

8 

19 

Florida.     .    .    . 

391,422 

224,461 

166,678 

101 

14 

168 

Georgia     .    .    . 

1,837,353 

973,462 

863,716 

no 

1 

64 

Kansas .... 

1,427,096 

1,374,882 

51,251 

107 

856 

Kentucky  .     .    . 

1,858,635 

1,585,526 

272,981 

29 

1 

98 

Louisiana  .    .    . 

1,118,587 

554,712 

562,893 

315 

39 

628 

Maryland  .    .    . 

1,042,390 

824,149 

218,004 

197 

6 

34 

Mississippi     .    . 

1,289,600 

539,703 

747,720 

122 

1 

2054 

Missouri    .     .    . 

2,679,184 

2,524,468 

154,131 

413 

4 

168 

North  Carolina  . 

1,617,947 

1,049,191 

567,170 

15 

I57i 

South  Carolina  . 

1,151,149 

458,454 

692,503 

20 

172 

Tennessee     .    . 

1,767,518 

1,332,971 

434,300 

64 

10 

173 

Texas    .... 

2,235,523 

1,741,190 

492,837 

727 

3 

766 

Virginia     .    .    . 

l,655,98o 

1,014,680 

640,867 

50 

13 

370 

West  Virginia    . 

762,794 

729,262 

33,508 

16 

8 

[Tables  III.,  IV.,  and  V.  are  not  printed.] 


APPENDIX   II 
Table  VI. 


363 


States. 

Increase  of  White. 

1880-90. 

1870-80. 

1860-70. 

1850-60. 

Alabama 

Arkansas  

Delaware 

District  of  Columbia .    . 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North  Carolina .... 
South  Carolina .... 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 

West  Virginia    .... 

Per  cent. 

25.46 
38.03 
16.04 
30.80 
5740 
19.16 
44.40 

15-13 
21.93 
13.72 
12.58 
24.80 
20.98 
17.22 
17-05 
4543 
15-19 
23.07 

Per  cent. 
27.01 
63.35 
17-55 
33-68 
48.46 
27.86 

174.89 

25.35 
25.66 
19.69 
25.20 
26.18 
27.82 
35-02 
21.65 
1 12.01 
23.70 
39-74 

Per  cent. 

0.93* 

11.71 

12.84 

45.28 

23-55 
8.01 

225.57 
19.49 

1.29 
17.36 

8.19 
5o.74 

7.70 

0.56* 
13-23 
34-17 

8.48f 

Per  cent. 

23-39 
99.86 
27.29 
60.15 
64.71 
1342 

20.76 
39.91 
23.44 
19.67 
79.64 

13.91 
6.10 

9-23 
173.25 
17.04! 

States. 

Increase  of  Coloured. 

1880-90. 

1870-80. 

1860-70. 

1850-60. 

Alabama 

Arkansas  

Delaware 

District  of  Columbia  .    . 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi    .    .    .    .    . 

Missouri 

North  Carolina .... 
South  Carolina .... 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 

West  Virginia   .... 

Per  cent. 

13-55 
47-73 

9.76 
27.40 
3I-56 
19.11 
18.89 

0.56 
16.38 

3.70 
14.98 

6.04 

6.76 
14-59 

7-73 
25.28 

1.46 
2944 

Per  cent. 
26.20 
72.44 
16.00 
37-31 
38.17 
33 .02 

I5L97 
22.16 
32.80 
19.86 
46.40 
23.10 
35-65 
45-34 
25.07 
55-2o 
23.16 
43-97 

Per  cent. 
8.62 
9.81 
540 

203.19 
46.29 
17.06 

2628.55* 
5-9i 
3-95 
249 
i-55 
0.36* 

8-33 

0.85 

13.89 

38.57 

t3-29* 

Per  cent. 

26.85 

133-21 

6.21 

4-15 
55-75 
21.08 

£87 

33-59 
3.66 

40.73 
31.61 
14.40 

4.66 

15.10 

212.38 

4-i8f 

*  Decrease. 


f  Including  West  Virginia. 


364 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


Table  VII.  shows  the  number  of  coloured  inhabitants  in  each 
of  the  States  under  discussion  at  each  census  from  1850  to  1890 
inclusive,  under  the  supposition  that  the  total  number  of  white 
was  100,000 :  — 

Table  VII. 


States. 


Alabama  .... 
Arkansas  .... 
Delaware  .... 
District  of  Columbia 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kansas 

Kentucky  .... 
Louisiana  .... 
Maryland  .... 
Mississippi.  .  .  . 
Missouri  .... 
North  Carolina  .  . 
South  Carolina  .  . 
Tennessee  .... 

Texas 

Virginia 

West  Virginia     .     . 


Number  of  Coloured  to  100,000  Whites. 


1890.  1880.  1870.  i860.  1850 


82,021 
38,H6 
20,815 
49,191 

74,257 

88,726 

3,728 

17,217 

ioi,475 
26,452 

138,543 
6,105 

54,058 
15^052 
32,581 
28,305 
63,160 
4,595 


90,625 
35,6i4 
22,005 
50,502 
88,840 
88,766 

4,527 

19,711 

106,309 

29,010 

135,647 

7,185 

61,261 

154,519 

35,400 

32,858 

71,705 

4,369 


91,201 
33,738 
22,299 
49,167 
95,453 
85,322 
4,939 
20,225 

100,592 
28,966 

126,328 

7,365 

57,725 

143,549 

34,433 

44,887 

72,019 

4,240 


83,183 
34,324 
23,874 
23,560 
80,618 
78,725 
589 
25,685 
98,018 
33,170 

123,596 
",I43 
57,39o 

141,545 
34,234 
43,46o 
52,412 


80,914 

29,415 
28,612 
36,230 
85,253 
73,741 

29,024 

102,654 

39,5oi 

105,103 

15,209 

57,142 

143,480 

32,488 

38,016 

58,880 


The  last  two  tables  are  of  special  interest,  as  they  illustrate 
the  movements  of  the  coloured  element  during  the  past  half- 
century.  An  inspection  of  them  makes  it  evident  that  there  has 
been  no  extended  northward  movement  of  this  element  since  the 
time  of  the  civil  war.  Indeed,  with  the  exception  of  the  District 
of  Columbia,  the  border  States  appear  to  have  lost  rather  than 
gained,  and  during  the  last  decade  there  becomes  perceptible  a 
southward  movement  of  the  coloured  element  from  the  border 
States  into  those  bordering  the  Gulf,  particularly  into  Mississippi 
and  Arkansas,  where  they  have  increased  proportionately  to  the 
white.  Let  the  States  under  consideration  be  divided  into  two 
groups,   the   first   comprising   Delaware,  Maryland,  District   of 


APPENDIX   II  365 

Columbia,  Virginia,  West  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  Missouri,  and  Kansas,  and  the  second  South  Caro- 
lina, Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas, 
and  Arkansas.  In  the  first  of  these  groups  the  increase  of  the 
white  population  from  1880  to  1890  was  at  the  rate  of  22  per 
cent,  while  that  of  the  coloured  element  was  but  5.50  per  cent. 
In  the  second  group  the  rate  of  increase  of  the  white  was  29.63 
per  cent,  while  that  of  the  coloured  was  but  19.10  per  cent.  In 
the  first  group  the  number  of  coloured  to  100,000  white 
diminished  between  1880  and  1890  from  26,700  to  23,089,  or 
13.52  per  cent,  while  in  the  second  it  diminished  from  80,116  to 
73,608,  or  only  8.12  per  cent.  There  is,  therefore,  a  perceptible 
tendency  southward  of  the  coloured  people,  which,  while  by  no 
means  powerful,  has  resulted  in  drawing  a  notable  proportion  of 
that  element  from  the  border  States  and  in  producing  in  two 
of  the  far  southern  States  a  more  rapid  increase  of  the  coloured 
element  than  of  the  white. 

Of  the  States  under  discussion,  three,  namely,  South  Carolina, 
Mississippi,  and  Louisiana,  contained  in  1890  a  larger  number  of 
coloured  people  than  of  white.  Of  the  population  of  South 
Carolina  more  than  three-fifths  are  coloured.  Five  other  States, 
namely,  Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia,  North  Carolina,  and  Vir- 
ginia, contained  a  coloured  element  ranging  from  one-third  to 
one-half  of  the  population. 

California  by  Race —  1890  and  1880. 

A  special  count  by  race  was  also  made  by  this  office  for  the 
State  of  California  in  order  to  separate  the  Chinese  and  Indians 
from  the  rest  of  the  population,  as  required  by  the  laws  of  that 
State,  for  purposes  of  State  apportionment.  For  the  State  as  a 
whole  the  white  population  has  increased  from  767,181  in  1880 
to  1,111,558  in  1890,  an  increase  of  344,377,  or  44.89  per  cent. 
The  coloured  population  in  the  State  shows  an  increase  during 
the  decade  of  5419,  or  90.05  per  cent,  while  there  has  been  a 
decrease  in  the  Chinese  of  3451,  or  4.59  per  cent.  The  whole 
number  of  Indians  in  the  State  is  less  in  1890  than  in  1880  by 
3922,  or  a  decrease  of  24.10  per  cent.  The  number  of  Japanese 
in  1890  as  compared  with  1880  is  large,  although  relatively  small 


366 


SOCIAL    EVOLUTION 


as  compared  with  the  whole  population.  The  number  of 
Japanese  returned  in  1890  is  1099,  as  against  86  in  1880.  The 
total  population  of  the  State  for  1890  is  1,208,130,  as  compared 
with  864,694  for  1880,  the  increase  being  343,436,  and  the  per 
cent  of  increase  39.72. 

California. 


The  State 

White. 

Coloured. 

Chinese. 

Japanese. 

Indians. 

1890. 

1880. 

1890. 

1880. 

1890. 

1880. 

1890. 

1880. 

1890. 

1880. 

i,"i,558 

767,181 

",437 

6018 

71,681 

75,132 

1099 

86 

12,355 

16,277 

APPENDIX    III 

The  Influence  of  Civilisation  upon  the  Movement  of  the  Population.  By 
P.  LEROY-BEAULIEU.  (Translation  from  the  Economiste  Francais, 
20th  and  27th  September  1890,  published  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal 
Statistical  Society  of  London,  June  1891.) 

(Reprinted  by  permission  of  M.  Leroy-Beaulieu  and  the  Royal 
Statistical  Society) 

The  following  are  the  facts  in  so  far  as  regards  France :  From 
1 80 1  to  18 10  the  number  of  births  was  in  the  proportion  of 
32.3  per  1000;  from  181 1  to  1820  it  was  31.6;  while  from  1820 
to  1830  it  was  30.8.  This  proportion,  which  by  reason  of  its 
lowness,  is  much  to  be  regretted,  had  not,  however,  anything 
very  extraordinary  in  itself.  It  is  true  that  it  was  lower  than 
the  actual  birth-rate  in  Prussia,  Bavaria,  Italy,  Austria,  Hungary, 
and  Switzerland,  but  it  nevertheless  assured  to  us  an  annual 
excess  of  nearly  200,000  births  over  deaths.  From  1830  until 
1850  the  diminution  in  the  birth-rate  became  accentuated. 
From  1 83 1  to  1840  the  proportion  of  births  was  in  the  ratio 
of  29  per  1000  inhabitants,  and  from  1841  to  1850,  of  27.4  per 
1000.  Under  the  second  empire  there  was  another  slight  falling 
off.  From  1851  to  i860  the  average  rate  was  26.3  per  1000; 
and  it  remained  absolutely  stationary  during  the  period  1860-70. 
Since  then  the  falling  off  has  become  more  marked,  as  from 
1870  to  1880  the  mean  rate  was  no  higher  than  25.4  per  1000, 
and  this  proportion  fell  to  24.6  during  the  period  1881-85  5  it 
fell  still  lower  in  1886,  until  in  1887  it  reached  23.5,  while  in  1888 
it  was  only  23.4.  Since  the  commencement  of  this  century, 
therefore,  the  procreative  power  of  the  nation  has  fallen  from 
32.3  per  1000  to  23.4,  or  a  loss  of  about  one-fourth,  and  since 
1870  alone  this  power  has  diminished  from  the  proportion  of 
26.3  to  23.4  per  1000. 

In  face  of  this  systematic  sterility  which  characterises  the 
French  race,  we  can  only  derive  consolation  from  the  fact 
that  all  other  civilised  nations  appear  to  be  tending  in  the 
same  direction.     Up  to  the  present  this  tendency,  it  is  true,  has 

367 


368  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

not  been  particularly  marked,  but  soon,  probably  in  a  quarter 
or  half  a  century,  it  will  become  more  and  more  accentuated. 
According  to  M.  de  Foville,  it  was  only  in  Austria  and  Hungary 
that  the  birth-rate  was  the  same  in  1882  or  1883  as  it  was  in  1865. 
In  Italy  during  this  short  interval  the  proportion  of  births  to 
every  1000  of  the  population  fell  from  38.3  to  36.9;  in  Prussia 
it  fell  from  39.1  to  36.3;  in  Bavaria  from  36.9  to  36.2;  in  the 
Netherlands  from  35.9  to  35.1 ;  in  Switzerland  from  35.5  to  32.5  ; 
in  Belgium  from  31.4  to  30.5  ;  in  England  from  35.5  to  33.7 ;  in 
Scotland  and  Ireland  the  birth-rate  fell  to  the  same  level  as  the 
French,  namely,  from  24.9  to  23.6  per  1000.  Moreover,  in  Eng- 
land and  Wales  the  number  of  births  in  1888  was  the  smallest 
on  record  since  1876,  and  the  report  of  the  Registrar-General  for 
the  first  quarter  of  1890  showed  that  the  English  birth-rate  had 
fallen  to  30  per  1000,  a  proportion  higher  than  the  French  rate,  it 
is  true,  but  much  lower  than  that  shown  for  all  the  preceding  years. 

Belgium  offers  a  similar  example.  Here  the  birth-rate  was 
only  29.4  per  1000  in  1888,  as  compared  with  30.3  in  1885  and 
32.1  in  the  period  comprised  between  1871  and  1880.  In  1840 
it  was  34.2,  and  the  fact  is  worthy  of  some  remark  that  it  is  par- 
ticularly in  the  Walloon  provinces,  which  contain  the  largest 
proportion  of  educated  persons  and  those  who  are  in  easy  and 
comfortable  circumstances,  that  the  birth-rate  is  low,  while  it  re- 
mains comparatively  high  in  the  Flemish  provinces,  which  are  not 
characterised  by  the  same  degree  of  material  ease  and  well-being. 

In  France  the  only  departments  in  which  a  high  birth-rate  is 
observable  are  the  poorest,  namely,  Morbihan,  Finistere,  Cotes 
du  Nord,  Lozere,  Corsica,  Aveyron,  La  Vendue,  Landes  and  the 
Nord,  and  the  Pas  de  Calais,  where  a  large  number  of  Belgians 
are  to  be  found. 

A  German  newspaper,  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung,  which  did  us 
the  honour  of  criticising  an  article  we  wrote  on  this  important 
question  in  the  Journal  des  Dibats,  affirmed  that  we  had  failed 
to  furnish  a  shadow  of  proof  in  support  of  our  theory  that  the 
development  of  the  general  well-being,  and  the  democratic  con- 
dition of  society  tend  to  bring  about  a  diminution  in  the  birth- 
rate. It  would  appear  that  our  German  confrere  is  hard  to  con- 
vince, as  we  should  have  thought  that  an  enumeration  of  the 
departments  is  in  itself  a  proof  of  our  assertion.      The  generality 


APPENDIX   III 


369 


of  these  departments  is  signalised  by  moderate  rates  of  wages,  in 
many  cases  very  low,  by  a  somewhat  low  standard  of  education, 
and  a  very  moderate  school  attendance.  If  we  compare  two 
maps,  one  showing  the  departments  classified  according  to  the 
number  of  married  couples  who  have  received  a  certain  educa- 
tion, and  the  other  the  departments  classified  according  to  the 
birth-rate,  we  should  find  that  these  two  maps  would  be  almost 
the  reverse  one  of  the  other.  We  do  not  for  a  moment  assert 
that  there  are  not  certain  exceptions,  although  there  is  not  a 
single  one  of  what  we  may  term  the  educated  department 
appearing  in  those  characterised  by  a  high  birth-rate ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  greater  part  of  the  latter,  as  for  example 
Brittany,  Haute  Vienne,  Aveyron,  and  Corsica,  figure  among  the 
less-educated  departments.  Neither  do  we  affirm  that  education 
is  the  sole  factor  which  reduces  the  birth-rate,  as  this  is  only  one 
of  the  factors  which,  combined  with  material  ease,  less  fervid 
religious  sentiments,  and  an  ardent  desire  to  attain  a  higher  and 
better  material  standard,  form  an  aggregation  of  intellectual  and 
moral  qualities  which  are  little  favourable  to  a  high  birth-rate. 

It  is  the  same  in  Belgium.  We  have  already  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  in  the  Walloon  provinces  the  birth-rate  is 
infinitely  weaker  than  in  the  Flemish  provinces,  while  in  the 
former  there  is  a  higher  standard  of  education ;  and,  moreover, 
wages  are  also  higher.  The  subjoined  tabular  statement  will 
show  this  very  clearly :  — 


Number  of  Per- 
sons able  to 
Read  and  Write 

per  100  of 
the  Population. 

Average  Daily 

Wages  of 

Agricultural 

Labourers  (Men) 

without  Board. 

Number  of  Births 

per  100 
of  the  Population. 

Flemish  Provinces  — 

s.       d. 

Antwerp      .... 

Flanders,  West   .    . 

East.    .    . 

Limbourg  .... 

5941 
52.67 
51.68 
57.68 

I         2 

1    si 

1      4 
1     31 

3-52 
3.J7 
3.12 

2-95 

Mixed  Province  — 

Brabant 

58.47 

1      4* 

2.98 

Walloon  Provinces  — 

Hainault     .... 

Liege 

Luxembourg  .     .     . 
Namur 

54-88 
61.88 
7342 
70.21 

1     11 
1     115 

1  \\\ 

2  l| 

243 

2.76 

2-54 
2-34 

370  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION 

The  above  table  has  been  prepared  from  the  data  supplied  by 
the  Annuaire  de  Statistique  de  la  Belgique  for  1889 ;  the  figures 
relating  to  education  and  wages  refer  to  the  year  1880,  no  later 
data  being  available,  while  the  birth-rates  are  for  the  year  1888. 
It  shows  that  in  all  the  Flemish  provinces  the  birth-rate  is  high, 
education  little  advanced,  and  wages  low,  similar  conditions 
being  observable  in  Brabant ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the 
Walloon  provinces  the  birth-rate  is  very  low,  wages  are  much 
higher,  and,  with  the  exception  of  Hainault,  where  there  are  a 
large  number  of  coal  mines,  education  is  much  more  advanced. 
Thus  we  may  take  it  that  in  general  (but  we  are  not  prepared  to 
say  that  it  is  an  absolute  rule  without  exception)  a  low  birth-rate 
goes  hand  in  hand  with  high  wages  and  the  spread  of  education. 
It  also  appears  to  be  particularly  associated  with  democratic 
aspirations,  and  still  more  with  a  lessening  of  religious  belief  on 
the  part  of  the  people,  and  a  modification  of  the  old  ideas  of 
resignation  and  submission  to  their  lot. 


Thus  what  it  has  been  agreed  to  call  civilisation,  which  is 
really  the  development  of  material  ease,  of  education,  of  equality, 
and  of  aspirations  to  rise  and  to  succeed  in  life,  has  undoubtedly 
conduced  to  a  diminution  of  the  birth-rate. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  this  falling  off  in  the  number  of  births, 
if  it  only  brings  in  its  train  a  smaller  increase  and  not  a  diminu- 
tion of  the  population  in  the  old  countries,  is  an  actual  misfor- 
tune, for  the  human  race  cannot  go  on  indefinitely  increasing  on 
a  planet  which  itself  does  not  increase.  But  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  world,  now  that  so  many  lands  are  insufficiently 
populated,  and  that  nations  have  established  a  forced  military 
service,  and  are  ready  at  any  moment  to  declare  war  one  with 
the  other,  this  reduction  of  births,  particularly  when  it  manifests 
itself  in  a  country  like  France  for  example,  must  certainly  be 
regarded  as  a  relative  misfortune.  In  one  respect  it  is  particu- 
larly unfortunate.  This  is  that  in  the  case  of  a  family  consisting 
of  one  or  two  children,  the  excessive  tenderness  of  the  parents, 
their  perpetual  fears  of  misfortune  happening  to  their  offspring, 
and  the  manner  in  which  the  latter  are  frequently  indulged,  have 
the  effect  of  depriving  the  male  children  of  any  spirit  of  bold- 


APPENDIX  III  371 

ness  and  enterprise  and  of  any  power  of  endurance.     From  this 
evil  France  is  suffering  at  the  present  day. 

This  is  no  reason  why  a  nation  with  a  medium  density  of 
population,  such  as  France,  should  consider  the  stagnation  of  its 
population  as  a  circumstance  in  itself  wholly  insignificant,  and 
one  not  calling  for  any  special  notice.  This  stagnation,  for 
reasons  to  which  we  have  already  called  attention  at  the  com- 
mencement of  this  review,  is  sufficiently  regrettable.  But  the 
question  arises  how  is  it  to  be  remedied  ?  The  cause  of  it  lies  in 
the  new  mental  condition  of  the  population,  and  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  change  by  laws  or  regulations  the  mental  condition  of  a 
people. 

Certain  suggestions  have  been  made  which  are  absolutely 
ludicrous  in  themselves  —  such  for  example  as  the  special  taxa- 
tion of  the  unmarried.  This  was  tried  under  the  Romans,  but 
without  effect.  Moreover,  when  the  law  presumes  to  punish  per- 
sons for  acts  which  are  in  themselves  morally  lawful,  then  it 
strikes  at  the  liberty  of  the  subject.  It  would  soon  be  found 
that  the  generality  of  the  persons  unmarried  had  very  good 
reasons  for  remaining  so,  either  infirmity,  weakness  of  constitu- 
tion, want  of  position,  poverty,  and  sometimes  they  would  be 
actuated  by  moral  considerations  of  the  highest  order.  A 
government,  therefore,  which  would  be  ill-advised  enough  to 
adopt  such  an  absurd  system  of  taxation,  would  very  speedily  be 
swept  from  power  by  the  force  of  public  indignation. 

And,  moreover,  it  is  not  in  the  insufficiency  of  marriages  that 
the  evil  lies.  In  France  there  are  almost  as  many  marriages  as 
elsewhere  —  at  the  present  time  the  proportion  is  in  the  ratio  of 
7.4  to  every  1000  of  the  population  —  as  compared  with  7.8  in  the 
period  comprised  between  1821  and  1830.  The  French  mar- 
riage-rate is  higher  therefore  than  the  Belgian,  where  there  are 
7.1  marriages  only  per  1000  inhabitants  —  but  in  the  latter  country 
the  infant  population  is  much  greater. 

The  evil  consists  in  the  small  number  of  children  to  each 
family  —  the  number  in  France  being  one,  two,  or  three,  where 
foreigners  have  four,  five,  and  six.  Does  it  therefore  follow  that 
it  is  necessary  to  give  a  bounty  to  those  persons  in  France  who 
have  six  or  seven  children?      This   is  another  very  doubtful 


372  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

remedy.  In  the  first  place  it  is  not  the  sixth  or  seventh 
child  whose  birth  it  is  desirable  to  encourage,  it  is  rather  the 
third  or  fourth.  Families  consisting  of  six  or  seven  children  are 
so  very  rare  that  if  they  had  an  additional  one  or  two  it  would 
result  in  but  an  insignificant  increase  to  the  population,  and  to 
give  bounties  to  the  third  or  fourth  child  it  would  be  necessary, 
in  order  that  the  rewards  should  be  efficacious,  that  an  addition 
of  hundreds  of  millions  of  francs  should  be  made  to  the  budget. 
We  are,  however,  very  far  from  saying  that  it  would  not  be  pos- 
sible by  judicious  and  inexpensive  measures,  by  a  good  use  of 
scholarships,  of  dispensations  from  military  service  and  other 
expedients,  to  reduce  to  some  extent  the  burdens  of  large 
families. 

We  are  by  no  means  disposed  to  recommend  the  re-establish- 
ment of  so-called  tours,  that  is  official  foundling  receptacles,  as 
we  regard  these  as  both  immoral  and  inefficacious ;  but  we  are 
at  the  same  time  quite  prepared  to  admit  that  charitable  societies 
might  establish  them  under  certain  circumstances,  if  they  were 
disposed  to  devote  their  time  and  their  money  to  this  object. 

The  true  remedies,  or  rather  the  useful  palliatives,  are  to  be 
sought  elsewhere.  It  is  above  all  necessary  to^  modify  the 
spirit  of  our  primary  education,  and  more  particularly  of  the 
teachers  in  our  public  schools ;  the  school  itself  should  in  a  far 
lesser  degree  stimulate  the  ambition  of  the  pupil,  the  desire  to 
put  forth  the  whole  strength  in  the  endeavour  to  succeed  in  the 
race  of  life,  and  to  attain  a  high  standard  of  material  well-being. 
The  scholastic  aim  ought  to  be  rather  directed  to  the  inculcation 
in  the  minds  of  the  pupils,  if  not  of  contentment  with  their  lot, 
at  least  of  more  modest  ideas,  and  of  resignation  to  manual 
labour.  The  primary  school  of  the  present  day,  by  the  short- 
sightedness of  the  teachers,  the  folly  of  the  scholastic  programme, 
and  the  wild  ideas  that  appear  to  have  taken  possession  of  those 
who  have  control  of  our  educational  system,  is  rapidly  leading  to 
a  general  dklassement,  to  universal  ambition  —  and  ambition  is 
certainly  opposed  to  the  contraction  of  marriages,  and  the  volun- 
tary acceptance  of  the  burdens  of  a  family. 

It  is  above  all  necessary  to  curtail  the  time  that  children  are 
kept  at  school,  to  adapt  it  to  rural  or  industrial  occupations  in 
such  a  manner  that  families  may  derive  some  advantages  from 


APPENDIX   III  373 

the  labours  of  their  younger  members.  Formerly,  both  in  the 
urban  and  rural  districts,  children  as  young  as  7  or  8,  or  at  least 
10  or  11,  performed  certain  allotted  tasks.  We  admit  that  this 
is  rather  an  early  age  for  a  child  to  commence  work,  but  in  any 
case  attendance  at  school  should  not  be  obligatory  after  the 
child  has  reached  the  twelfth  year ;  in  no  case  should  the  fac- 
tories and  workshops  in  those  countries  which  have  experienced 
the  need  of  an  increased  population,  be  closed  to  the  child  who  is 
over  12  years  of  age  —  and  this  is  what  our  neighbours  the  Eng- 
lish, philanthropists  certainly,  but  infinitely  more  practical  than 
ourselves,  have  thoroughly  realised.  In  the  same  way  laws  pro- 
hibiting married  women,  and  those  who  are  enceinte,  or  have 
recently  been  confined,  from  working,  are  instrumental  in  dimin- 
ishing the  population.  To  return,  however,  to  the  scholastic 
system,  there  is  no  doubt  that  discipline  should  certainly  be 
relaxed  in  the  rural  districts,  and  more  especially  at  the  harvest 
time,  and  that  classes  composed  of  children  of  a  certain  age 
should  be  allowed  to  absent  themselves  in  summer. 

A  kind  of  ridiculous  pedantry  would  seem  for  some  years  past 
to  have  found  its  way  into  everything.  It  is  useful  to  know  how 
to  read  and  to  write,  and  to  have  some  knowledge  of  history  and 
geography,  but  to  acquire  these  rudiments  it  surely  is  not  neces- 
sary to  devote  long  years  of  study  and  application ;  and,  more- 
over, it  is  infinitely  more  useful  that  men  should  acquire  at  an 
early  age  a  taste  for  those  things  which  are  to  occupy  them  all 
their  lives,  that  families  should  increase,  and  that  the  population 
should  not  be  enfeebled.  The  regulations  respecting  apprentice- 
ship, by  reason  of  the  introduction  of  too  much  idealism,  are  also 
becoming  inept.  It  is  desired  that  the  apprentice  should  not 
render  any  personal  service  to  the  master,  but  then  apprentice- 
ship becomes  too  burdensome,  and  there  is  an  end  of  the  system. 

Again,  it  may  be  asked  if  all  the  young  girls  who  have  adopted 
liberal  or  semi-liberal  careers  are  not  more  or  less  condemned 
to  celibacy?  It  would  be  curious  to  have  a  census  enumeration 
of  public  school-mistresses,  married  and  single,  and  of  females 
holding  government  appointments.  We  are  of  opinion  that  the 
proportion  of  unmarried  women  occupying  these  positions  is 
much  greater  than  in  the  generality  of  females,  the  reason  being 
that  the  majority  of  young  girls  who  are  appointed  to  these  posts 


374  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION 

frequently  look  down  upon  the  simple  workman  or  peasant,  and, 
moreover,  as  they  are  frequently  being  moved  from  place  to 
place,  they  have  not  the  same  opportunities  of  contracting  matri- 
monial alliances  as  others. 

We  need  hardly  point  out  that  it  is  far  from  our  intention  to 
condemn  either  education  in  general,  or  that  of  women  in  partic- 
ular, but  rather  is  it  our  desire  to  point  out  simply  what  appears 
to  be  necessary  to  improve  and  to  modify  its  tendencies.  Every 
age  is  characterised  by  its  particular  craze.  The  present  craze 
is  for  education,  unlimited  and  injudicious,  and  for  philanthropy 
equally  unlimited  and  injudicious,  both  absolutely  superficial. 
By  their  aid  we  have  succeeded  in  producing  a  mental  condition 
and  in  creating  certain  social  circumstances  which  are  most  un- 
favourable to  the  growth  of  the  population. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  observe  that  the  most  efficacious  remedy 
is,  for  a  country  like  France,  which  has  many  attractions  for 
foreigners,  to  obtain  the  naturalisation  of  from  50,000  to  100,000 
aliens  annually.  By  this  means  the  number  of  inhabitants  would 
be  increased,  and  the  reproductive  power  of  the  country  would,  at 
the  same  time,  be  largely  augmented. 


THE   END 


"A  Remarkable  Book." 

SOCIAL    EVOLUTION. 

BY 

BENJAMIN    KIDD. 
New  Edition,  revised,  with  a  new  Preface. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  SOME  OF  THE  PRESS  NOTICES. 

"  The  name  of  Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd,  author  of  a  very  striking  work  on 
4  Social  Evolution,'  is,  so  far  as  we  know,  new  to  the  literary  world;  but 
it  is  not  often  that  a  new  and  unknown  writer  makes  his  first  appear- 
ance with  a  work  so  novel  in  conception,  so  fertile  in  suggestion,  and 
on  the  whole  so  powerful  in  exposition  as  '  Social  Evolution '  appears 
to  us  to  be,  ...  a  book  which  no  serious  thinker  should  neglect,  and 
no  reader  can  study  without  recognizing  it  as  the  work  of  a  singularly 
penetrating  and  original  mind."  —  The  Times  (London). 

"  It  is  a  study  of  the  whole  development  of  humanity  in  a  new 
light,  and  it  is  sustained  and  strong  and  fresh  throughout.  ...  It  is 
a  profound  work  which  invites  the  attention  of  our  ablest  minds,  and 
which  will  reward  those  who  give  it  their  careful  and  best  thought. 
It  marks  out  new  lines  of  study,  and  is  written  in  that  calm  and  resolute 
tone  which  secures  the  confidence  of  the  reader.  It  is  undoubtedly 
the  ablest  book  on  social  development  that  has  been  published  for  a 
long  time."  —  Boston  Herald. 

"Those  who  wish  to  follow  the  Bishop  of  Durham's  advice  to  his 
clergy  — '  to  think  over  the  questions  of  socialism,  to  discuss  them  with 
one  another  reverently  and  patiently,  but  not  to  improvise  hasty  judg- 
ments' —  will  find  a  most  admirable  introduction  in  Mr.  Kidd's  book 
on  social  evolution.  It  is  this  because  it  not  merely  contains  a  com- 
prehensive view  of  the  very  wide  field  of  human  progress,  but  is  packed 
with  suggestive  thoughts  for  interpreting  it  aright.  .  .  .  We  hope 
that  the  same  clear  and  well-balanced  judgment  that  has  given  us  this 
helpful  essay  will  not  stay  here,  but  give  us  further  guidance  as  to  the 
principles  which  ought  to  govern  right  thinking  on  this  the  question  of 
the  day.  We  heartily  commend  this  really  valuable  study  to  every 
student  of  the  perplexing  problems  of  socialism."  —  The  Churchman. 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,       -       -       NEW  YORK. 


Second  and  Cheaper  Edition. 

NATIONAL    LIFE    AND 
CHARACTER: 

A  FORECAST. 

BY 

CHARLES   H.   PEARSON, 

Hon.  LL.D.  St.  Andrews,  late  Fellow  of  Oriel  College,  Oxford,  and 
sometime  Minister  of  Education,  Victoria. 

Second  Edition.    Crown  8vo,  $2.00. 


"  A  very  remarkable  and  striking  book.  Mr.  Pearson's  specu- 
lations on  the  future  of  national  life  and  character  are  certainly 
a  notable  sign  of  the  times.'" — Times. 

"  It  is  some  considerable  time  since  we  have  read  a  book  on 
politics  with  anything  like  the  interest  which  has  accompanied 
our  reading  of  Mr.  Pearson's  'Forecast.'"  —  Saturday  Review. 

"  A  book  with  which  many  will  disagree,  but  which  will  set 
a  very  large  number  of  able  persons  thinking."  —  Academy. 

u  We  at  once  confess  that  we  have  here  the  mature  reflections 
of  a  man  of  superior  learning  and  wide  information.  .  .  .  The 
book  is  thoroughly  interesting,  and  stimulating  to  a  high  de- 
gree." —  Andover  Review. 

"...  One  of  the  most  suggestive  and  stimulating  books  that 
have  for  a  long  time  appeared."  —  New  World. 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,       -  NEW  YORK. 


New  and  Revised  Edition.     Price,  $1.50  per  volume. 


LIFE    AND    LABOURS 

OF 

THE    PEOPLE     IN    LONDON 


EDITED   BY 

CHARLES    BOOTH. 


VOL.    I. 
EAST,  CENTRAL,  AND  SOUTH  LONDON. 

VOL.  II. 
STREETS  AND  POPULATION  CLASSIFIED. 

VOL.  III. 

BLOCKS  OF  BUILDINGS,  SCHOOLS  AND 
IMMIGRATION. 

VOL.  IV. 
THE  TRADES  OF  EAST  LONDON. 


Published  under  a  Separate  Cover.    Price,  $1.50. 
MAPS  OF  LONDON  POVERTY. 

i.  By  Districts.     Scale,  2  in.  to  the  mile. 

2.  By  Streets  (in  four  sections).     Scale,  6  in.  to  the  mile. 

Will  be  issued  shortly. 
VOLS.   V.   AND  VI. 

Dealing  with  the  TRADES   OF  LONDON  generally. 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,       -       -       NEW  YORK. 


BOOKS   ON   SOCIAL   PROBLEMS. 


LABOUR  AND  THE  POPULAR  WELFARE. 

By  W.  H.  MALLOCK, 

Author  of  "Is  Life  Worth  Living,"  etc. 

New  and  Cheaper  Edition.    12mo.    Cloth.    90  cents. 


ESSAYS   ON   QUESTIONS   OF  THE  DAY, 
POLITICAL  AND   SOCIAL. 

By  GOLDWIN  SMITH,  D.C.L. 

Second  Edition.     Revised  and   Rewritten.     Large  12mo. 
Cloth.    $2.25. 

"  He  is  a  thoroughly  well  informed,  incisive,  and  courageous  critic  of  the  new 
order  of  ideas."  —  Daily  Chronicle. 

"  At  once  solid  and  brilliant,  well  reasoned,  and  often  witty."  —  Glasgow  Herald. 


EIGHT  HOURS   FOR  WORK. 

By  JOHN  RAE,  M.A., 

Author  of  il Contemporary  Socialism." 
12mo.    Cloth.    $1.25. 

"  Deals  with  a  burning  question,  and  deals  with  it  not  by  means  of  barren  specu- 
lations, but  by  investigation  of  facts." — Times. 

"  In  large  extent  a  reprint  of  most  excellent  articles  which,  from  time  to  time, 
have  appeared  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  and  have  been  read  by  every  one 
interested  in  labour  questions.  There  are,  however,  in  the  present  volume  chapters 
on  the  connection  between  hours  and  wages,  on  the  eight-hour  movement  of  1833, 
and  on  the  present  proposals  for  legislation,  which  are  new,  and  which  are  up  to  the 
high  level  of  the  rest  of  the  author's  work."  —  Athenceum. 


THE    UNEMPLOYED. 

By  GEOFFREY  DRAGE, 

Secretary  of  the  Labour  Commission. 
12mo.    Cloth.    $1.50. 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  NEW  YORK. 


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